The Candle of Distant Earth (20 page)

T
hough it seemed the size of a small ocean liner, Walker knew the vehicle that was carrying him and his friends northward from the port where they had been granted entrée to Tuuqalia was nothing more than the local equivalent of a cargo and passenger truck. It was also an impressive example of advanced local technology. Built to accommodate Tuuqalian-sized freight as well as Tuuqalians themselves, it emitted little more than a sonorous hiss as it streaked northward barely thirty meters above the ground at some three hundred kilometers an hour.

Once clear of the city and its port, the craft traveled over terrain that alternated between gently rolling and pancake flat. Though he glimpsed them at speed, Walker was able to see enough of the occasional villages they passed to recognize that they were both larger and more technologically developed than their counterparts on either Hyff or Niyu, though for sophistication they were still surpassed by the stylish, organically integrated municipalities of Seremathenn.

They traveled for several days, stopping occasionally to discharge or take on passengers and cargo. Walker and George looked forward to these pauses, not only because it gave them an opportunity to step outside the confines of the transport, but because they were able to see and experience something of their friend Braouk's homeworld outside a major city. Sque settled for studying through a port the numerous stops that were to her becoming increasingly repetitive. She was anxious to reach their destination, make her observations, return to the port where they had landed, and be about the business of finding her own way home. Xenology, she explained, was all very well and good, but it was no substitute for being among one's own kind. Walker did not disagree. With Sque, it would have been a waste of time to do so anyway.

There finally came a morning when Braouk told them to prepare to disembark. Little in the way of preparation was required, since Walker carried everything he and George needed in a single small satchel of Sessrimathe manufacture. A change of clothing, some hygienic supplies, dried emergency rations, vitamin and mineral supplements, and a remarkable spherical storage device that contained, among other things, not only all the recipes he had pored over and devised himself but three-dimensional recordings of his cooking performances. Together, these comprised the bulk of his “luggage.” It made traveling easy, if not homey.

Led by Braouk, they exited the craft onto an unloading platform. It projected outward from two modest structures, a receiving building and a tall, windowless tower of unknown purpose. They were the only passengers to disembark at this stop, though they were joined by several large shipping containers. After a brief conversation among themselves, these split up and went their separate self-propelled ways, scooting along just above the ground on their own integrated propulsion units. When the transport craft finally departed, the four travelers were left alone on the dull bronzed, semicircular metal platform.

It was suddenly very quiet.

How the transport, or anyone else for that matter, could locate such unloading platforms was a matter of some interest to Walker and his friends. No roads led to it, no tracks or markers. It was completely surrounded by flat plains whose only distinguishing features were slightly different varieties of low vegetation. To the south and north, endless fields of something like three-meter-tall purple asparagus marched off toward opposite horizons. To the west, undulating rows of bulbous concave shapes thrust upward from manicured soil like thousands of nut-brown bathtubs balanced precariously on their drainage pipes. As Braouk explained, the bathtub-shaped growths consisted of solid, edible protein while the “pipes” were the stalks and stems from which they blossomed.

Eastward, the flora was neither as tall or as intimidatingly bizarre. The
pirulek
that dominated that direction was reassuringly green and no more than knee-high. However, the vine-like growths existed in a state of constant motion that was rendered more than a little eerie by the complete absence of any breeze. Despite their garish, unnatural colors and alien shapes, the asparagus trees and bathtub vegetation were less unsettling, Walker decided. At least they had they decency to remain still. Gazing at the twitchy, spasming field of
pirulek
was enough to unsettle even someone who had already spent time on several alien worlds.

A hum grew audible and suddenly Braouk was pointing excitedly. “My family comes, hardly daring to hope, so long.”

The vehicle that slowed to a halt and hovered level with the raised edge of the unloading platform consisted of three flat congruent discs whose alignment formed a triangular shape. Domed on top, flat on the bottom, a large passenger-cargo compartment bulged upward from the point where the three discs intersected. From it emerged a quartet of Tuuqalians who threatened to trample Walker, George, and a sputtering Sque in their rush to wrap powerful tentacles around Braouk. There was much fulsome spouting of poetry. So much so that by the time Tuuqalia's sun had slipped below its horizon and a definite chill had begun to creep into the air, human, dog, and K'eremu had been rendered half-insensible by the interminable outpouring of greetings.

They were roused by Braouk's introductions that, mercifully, were unusually brief for their usually loquacious companion. They were tired, he explained to his family members, and unused to proper recitation. At this explanation, his welcoming relations became by turns apologetic and solicitous.

Bundling the returned abductee (whom none of his thankful family members had ever expected to see again) and his alien companions into the unusual craft, Braouk's relatives conveyed them to the family residence. Being built to Tuuqalian scale, this very modest (as Braouk had described it) center of cultivation struck Walker as no less than a small town. He was assured it was the home of only one family. On Tuuqalia, however, that was a more elastic term than on Earth. Some sixty multi-tentacled souls of varying age and experience lived and worked at the facility, and it seemed that every one of them wanted to personally congratulate not only the returning Braouk but his peculiar friends as well.

In addition to congratulations, much local food was proffered. Some of it his and Sque's personal Sessrimathe analyzers pronounced fit for human, canine, or K'eremu consumption, some the compact units declared inedible, and some the guests themselves rejected for reasons of taste or visual aesthetics. As the Tuuqalian diet was now largely vegetable based, though with significant infusions of synthetic and gathered meat proteins, Walker found there was quite a lot he could eat. George pronounced a good deal of it not only suitable for consumption, but tasty as well, while Sque nattered on about the need to eat to survive regardless of the incontestable insipidness of the nourishment that happened to be available.

When the Tuuqalians were informed that one of Braouk's friends was a professional chef whose talents had been recognized on multiple worlds, there was nothing for it but that Walker had to demonstrate his skills in a food preparation area the size of a small concert hall. By keeping it simple, he was able to prepare a couple of dishes using regional ingredients that did not outrage local palates, whereupon he was promptly anointed a hero as well as a guest. There was little the inhabitants of Tuuqalia enjoyed more than food, a trait Walker had recognized from the first time he had seen a hungry Braouk chomping down food bricks on board the Vilenjji capture ship. Little more, except the composing and reciting of a proper saga, of course.

It was when everyone had finished eating that Braouk was persuaded (without much effort, Walker noted) to tell something of the story of his experiences subsequent to his abduction from a sowing field one night years ago. As his implant translated his oversized friend's reminiscences, Walker was reminded of his own last evening on Earth, when he had been taken from his campsite by those sucker-armed, pebble-skinned, pointy-headed dissolute creatures called the Vilenjji. His and Braouk's experiences, if not the degree of resistance they had put up, were strikingly similar, notwithstanding that Walker's abduction had taken place under one moon, Braouk's beneath three, George's below a flickering neon sign advertising a local beer, and Sque's in relative darkness.

Having heard it all before, more times than any of them cared to count, the guests were excused from Braouk's never-ending ramblings.

Though all were members of one extended family, each individual Tuuqalian had their own dwelling. No two, mated or otherwise, lived under the same roof.

“At last,” Sque commented upon learning the details of the local living arrangements, “some small hint of true civilization.”

They were given the living quarters of a member of the family who was presently away on business. As the huge resting depression in the floor with its computerized reactive underbase reminded George of a time when he had been caught in deep mud and nearly suffocated, they elected to sleep instead on strands of the self-binding material that was used to fasten bundles of the purple asparagus-like growths for shipment. The cosseting material was pale blue and tough as spun titanium. A pile of it was supple as silk. The trick, Walker told himself as he fluffed up his makeshift bed, would be not to toss and turn too much in his sleep, or he was liable to strangle himself with the stuff.

Perhaps it was the unexpected softness that woke him. More likely it was the noise. Blinking, rubbing his eyes, he observed in the dim light that issued from the floor that both Sque and George continued to sleep soundly. Surely he had heard something?

There it was again. Rising, shaking off several strands of the fluffy binding material, he walked over to the other side of the enormous resting room. As he approached the wall beyond which he thought he heard the noise, the barrier detected his presence and unexpectedly went transparent. Since he was still half-asleep, the effect startled him into taking a nervous jump backward. When he warily retraced his footsteps and extended an arm, the pressure against his open, upraised palm assured him that the wall was still there. He wondered if anyone outside could see in as easily as he could see out.

The resting chamber of the dwelling was located on the top floor of the residence they were occupying. Thus, the now transparent wall provided him with a sweeping view across the nearby plain. Collectively, the family dwellings formed a giant circle, so that each one looked inward to family meeting, working, and dining areas and buildings, and out onto the family's extensive fields.

All three moons were up, with the result that it was quite bright outside. Though the light was wan and more than a little ethereal, he found that he could see clearly. One gibbous satellite was slightly larger than Earth's while the other two were considerably smaller. They cast an otherworldly, tripartite alien glow on the pastoral scene spread out before him. Stretching to the far, unpolluted horizon was an impressive field of the tall, purple-tinged growths he had first seen upon arriving at the disembarkation station.

Lowering his gaze and working it along the interior of the building's now transparent wall, he came to a softly radiant point of blue light that appeared to be fixed in place just above eye level. His eye level, he reminded himself. Fascinated by the steady glow, reasonably confident he was unlikely to encounter anything dangerous in an area designated for sleeping, he extended a finger toward it. A quick glance backward showed that George and Sque were still fast asleep, George nestled deep into a bed of silken wrappings similar to but less voluminous than Walker's own, Sque atop material not unlike an oversized damp sponge that had been improvised for her comfort.

As his finger slid into the blue glow, cool air enveloped his nude form. Large enough to pass a Tuuqalian, the opening that appeared allowed him egress to a small, curved balcony outside the sleeping chamber. Whatever had rendered the wall transparent had done the same for the balcony area, but once he stepped outside, both the flat extension beneath his feet and the wall behind him turned opaque. He could not see back inside the sleeping area. Only the blue glow of the activator, or doorknob, or whatever it was, remained to show him how to get back inside.

While the mellow ruddiness of the three moons casting their magic on the endless field was what had initially drawn his interest, his attention was quickly caught by a rush of motion off to his right. Moving to the edge of the porch, whose spidery plasticized railing was fortunately low enough for him to see over, he stared in awe at the busy nocturnal activity whose distant sounds had teased him awake.

Several streams of tightly baled purple stalks converged on a large, dun-colored structure far enough out in the fields so that the noise of the activity was little more than a distant buzz. Even at a distance and watching by moonlight, he could tell that there were hundreds of stalks in each hefty bundle, and hundreds of bundles in each line. Each self-propelled bundle remained equidistant from the one in front of it and the one behind. Tuuqalians mounted on individual scoop-shaped vehicles soared and darted among and around the parading streams of trussed vegetation. That much he could comprehend. But what unseen mechanism was supporting the truck-sized bales?