Fossil Hunter (39 page)

Afsan nodded. “Have you appointed a new imperial bloodpriest yet?”

“To replace Maliden? No. His body lies at Prath, and the palace is still mourning his passing.”

“But is it not the imperial bloodpriest who leads the entire order?”

“Yes.”

“Then a replacement must be appointed soon,” said Afsan.

“Granted. But who? Maliden had no apprentice.”

“Toroca.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Kee-Toroca. My son. Make him the new imperial blood-priest — or, at least, assign him the task of determining which should live.”

“But he’s a geologist.”

“Yes.”

“Why him?”

“Toroca is special. He has no sense of territoriality.”

Dybo nodded. “I’ve noticed he has a tendency to stand too close to people.”

“It’s more than that. He doesn’t feel territoriality at all. He thinks it’s a secret, but, even blind, I am more observant than he knows.”

“No territoriality,” repeated Dybo. “Amazing.”

“You and he have much in common, really,” said Toroca. “I heard from Cadool about how you helped quell the frenzy in the streets.”

Dybo clicked his teeth. “I have my good days and my bad. I’m certainly not free of territoriality.”

“No, but yours is subdued compared to most people’s.”

Dybo grunted. “Perhaps. But you think Toroca, because of his lack of territoriality, should be the new imperial bloodpriest?”

“Exactly,” said Afsan. “It’s a sad fact that almost all of those seventeen hundred children will have to be killed. Someday, perhaps, when we do finally get off this world, there will be room for all our children to live, but until then we must have population controls. Most of the hatchlings in question are old enough now to reveal more than just how fast they are. Let Toroca devise a way to select among them. He knows what to look for, I’m sure. I guarantee he won’t simply choose the fastest or strongest.”

Dybo sounded worried. “But that will change…”

“Change the entire character of a generation of Quintaglios,” said Afsan. “Maybe not by much, but it will be a step in the right direction.”

“A whole generation chosen for something other than aggressiveness,” said Dybo. “It’s a daring thought.”

“But a productive one. We all need to be able to work together, Dybo. You know that. The old saying is true: time crawls for a child, walks for an adolescent, and runs for an adult. Well, our civilization is now past its childhood, and time is indeed running now — running out, for this entire world.”

“I had exactly the same thought myself many days ago,” said Dybo. “I agree, a reduction in territoriality would be a useful thing.”

Afsan’s tail swished. “And remember the giant blue structure Toroca has found in Fra’toolar. When we do at last leave this world, we may be entering someone else’s territory. I have a feeling that, whatever’s out there, we might do well not to challenge it.”

Dybo nodded. “Very well. I shall appoint Toroca. He won’t want the job, I’m sure…”

“The fact that he won’t want it is perhaps his best qualification for it,” said Afsan. “Once the current overpopulation problem is solved, he can step down.”

Dybo bowed at his friend. “You are wise, Afsan. We need more people like you.”

Afsan dipped his muzzle, seemingly accepting the compliment. He said nothing, keeping his promise to Maliden, but held on to a single thought.
No, Dybo, we need more people like you.

Just north of Capital City, not far from Rockscape, there were some wide plains ending in a cliff face overlooking the vast body of water that, for want of a better name, people still called the Great River. The plains were covered with grass, kept short by shovelmouths and other plant-eaters. The east-west wind blew across its level surface.

A small crowd — the only kind possible — had gathered here, gathered around what some were calling Novato’s folly.

It was a bizarre contraption, made of thin wooden struts and sheets of leather and pieces of light metal. It seemed fragile, almost as if the wind would blow it away.

“My friends,” said Novato, standing on an upended crate so that everyone could see her, “I present the
Tak-Saleed
.”

There were murmurs of recognition from some in the crowd, but many were too young to remember the person after whom the strange machine was named.

The
Tak-Saleed
had a wide triangular canopy and a small hollow undercarriage. Its front end was articulated, with a double-headed prow that pointed both forward and back. It resembled more than anything a crude child’s model of a wingfinger made from odds and ends, and yet, that wasn’t quite right either, for it had a tail that fanned out behind it and its wings were reinforced with struts.

In these particulars, it looked not like a wingfinger, but like the strange gift from the giant blue egg found in Fra’toolar — like a bird.

Novato moved behind the undercarriage and crawled in on her belly, lying flat within. Her tail, thick and flattened from side to side, rose up through a slit that ran down the rear of the hull. Once she was in position, two assistants stepped close, strapping the protruding part of her tail into a harness that swiveled the articulated prow.

At last, the ropes holding the
Tak-Saleed
in place were cut. The steady wind blew under its great triangular wing and … and … and…

…
lifted it into the air.

The crowd gasped. The
Tak-Saleed
skimmed across the plain, barely clearing the grass at times, occasionally lifting to the height of a middle-ager’s shoulder.

All too soon, it skidded to a stop, having traveled perhaps twenty paces.

Tails thumped the ground in glee. Novato let out a whoop of joy…

…and then a gust of wind blew across the plain and suddenly she was airborne again. Unprepared, she yanked her tail, the pointed head of the craft turned, and the
Tak-Saleed
banked to the right, into the wind, toward the cliff face.

Members of Novato’s team ran toward the runaway craft, hoping to grab hold of it, but just as they got close, the glider lifted higher, higher still, sailing over their heads, sailing over the precipice — The entire crowd ran to the edge of the cliff, mouths agape. The
Tak-Saleed
was spiraling down, lower and lower. If it hit the cliff face, Novato would be killed. She was frantically moving her tail, trying to steer.

The craft rose slightly again, but only for a moment, and then the wide curving path continued its downward course. Below was rocky shore.

There was nothing to be done. It would take a daytenth to get down to the water. There were no easy paths from here.

They watched, horrified, as the fragile-looking craft continued to spiral in. A real wingfinger flew into view, apparently wondering what this thing was. The hairy flyer looked so much more elegant, more in control…

The
Tak-Saleed
touched the waves — just touched them — and seemed to break apart.

Novato was strapped in, her tail hooked up to the steering contraption. If she couldn’t free herself, and quickly, she would drown.

Waves crashed against rocks.

The
Tak-Saleed
looked like a dead thing, broken on the water.

Wingfingers squawked.

And then…

Something moving through the waves…

Something green.

Novato! Her thick tail was swinging side-to-side, propelling her toward the shore. Closer, closer still. At last she stood, waves rolling against her legs. She gestured, a great, expansive arcing of her arm, at the crowd above.

And every single one of them cheered.

The first small step had been taken.

The first Quintaglio had flown.

A young Quintaglio used to go through two rites of passage at childhood’s end. One was the first hunt — the first truly cooperative effort — coming together and feeling the camaraderie of the pack. The other was a pilgrimage by sailing ship to the far side of the world to gaze upon the spectacle of the Face of God, covering one-quarter of the sky.

That particular journey had lost its religious significance, thanks to Afsan, but still was something that everyone did at least once in his or her lifetime. Toroca was sure that a third rite of passage — a third thing everyone did at least once — would be added to that list. Everyone would journey to the cliffs along the coast of Fra’toolar to see the great blue structure, projecting out like a giant, half-buried egg. Toroca’s surveyors, and teams of bridge and road builders, had removed much more rock than the original blackpowder blasts had, but the great hull, made of that strange indestructible material, was still mostly encased in layer after layer of stone.

Once conditions settled down in the Capital, Dybo insisted on going to see the structure himself. He summoned the
Dasheter
. and he, along with Novato and Afsan and gruff old Captain Keenir, made their way to the site of the discovery, joining Toroca and Babnol there. They all stood on the beach, chill winds whipping over them, and stared up at the structure: curving blue surface against beige rock, the sky purple overhead, the sun, near the zenith, brilliantly white.

“Incredible,” said Dybo softly. His arms were back to about half their normal length, the new skin bright yellow.

“Aye,” said Keenir, “that it is.”

“But what is it?” asked Dybo.

Toroca spoke with some hesitation. “It’s a ship.”

“But surely not a sailing ship,” said Keenir at once.

“No,” said Toroca. “Not a sailing ship.”

Novato looked at her son. “What other kind of ship is there?”

Toroca turned to face her. “Exactly. What other kind, indeed?” Then, back to Keenir: “You’re right, of course, it’s not a sailing vessel. But I do think it’s a ship. It’s self-contained, having its own sleeping areas, food storage areas, and so on — one could live within it for extraordinary lengths of time. And it is streamlined, like a boat’s hull.”

“Then it
is
a boat,” said Dybo.

“No, it’s not,” said Keenir, his voice like gravel grinding together. “First, it has no sails or rudder or keel. Second, its design makes no precautions against water leakage; Toroca tells me it has doors that go all the way to the floor. And third, it’s too heavy.”

“Too heavy?” said the still-slim Dybo, the subject perhaps near and dear to his heart.

“Exactly,” said Toroca. “The blue material the ship’s hull is made of is very, very dense — no doubt part of the reason it’s so incredibly strong. If you were to drop the ship into water, it would sink faster than a lead weight. Even with all the hollow spaces within, it’s still much too heavy to be a sailing ship.”

“A ship for what medium, then?” asked Dybo.

“For space,” said Toroca.

“What is ’space’?” asked Keenir.

“In this context,” said Toroca, “the intervening volume between celestial objects.”

“You mean the air?” asked the sailor.

“Perhaps.”

“But if the ship is too heavy to float,” said Dybo, “surely it’s too heavy to fly through the air.”

“Novato’s flying machine, the Tak-Saleed, was heavier than air, and it flew.”

Dybo nodded. “A ship of the air. A ship of — of space.”

“That is what I believe, yes.”

“And this ship’s purpose?” asked Afsan.

“To bring life here from wherever life really originated.” said Toroca. He saw jaws drop around the circle and inner eyelids flutter in astonishment.

“What do you mean?” said Dybo.

Toroca gestured expansively, taking in the entire cliff face. “Those layers of rock are like the pages of a book,” he said. “But they’re not a complete book. Most of the early pages are blank. It’s as though we’ve come in in the middle of the story. This rock book is — call it volume two in a series. Volume one is somewhere else, and that book, if only we could see it and read its pages, would show us our true origins.”

“We did not originate here?” said Keenir.

“Does that shock you, old friend?” said Toroca.

Keenir shook his head. “I was with Afsan when he changed the world. I’m old, and if that has one advantage, it’s perspective: I’ve seen so much change during my lifetime. No, Toroca, it does not shock me.”

“Evolution accounts for all the diversity of life,” said Toroca. “Of that I’m sure. You see that lowest of the white layers in the rocks near the top of the cliff? The one we’ve called the Bookmark layer? That name is more apt than we knew: it marks the beginning of our story here, on this world, but by no means the real beginning of the saga of the Quintaglios. That book, as I’ve said, is elsewhere. We used to think the Bookmark marked the point of creation, but it does nothing of the kind. It merely marks the point of
arrival
. Life originated elsewhere, evolved elsewhere.”

They all looked up at the cliff face, awe on their faces.

At last, Toroca pointed at the great blue ark. “And that, and doubtless others like it that did not fail, is how we got here.” He shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe it was indeed one of eight ships.” He glanced at Babnol. “Maybe, in that metaphorical sense, the story of the eggs of creation is correct.”

He looked at them each in turn. “But, in any event, a huge time ago by our own standards, although quite recently in terms of the overall age of this world, our ancestors were — were —
deposited
here, transplanted by those astonishing beings who built this ship.”

Dybo leaned back on his tail. “A ship of space,” he said again. Everyone was quiet for a time, until Dybo spoke once more. “This gives the exodus new meaning.” The Emperor tipped his head up, up, past layer after layer of rock, past the vast blue ark, past the Bookmark layer, past it all, all the way to the sky, far overhead. “We’re not just going to the stars,” he said, his voice full of wonder. And then he tipped his muzzle down and nodded at his friends. “We’re going home.”