The Candle of Distant Earth (6 page)

A goods warehouse was immediately cleared and proper accommodations, insofar as the Hyfft understood them, were thrown together with an efficiency and skill that left the visitors more than a little impressed. It was necessary to adapt the warehouse because, with the exception of the single K'eremu and one lone dog, none of the visitors could squeeze through the opening of a Hyfftian warren even by bending.

Nothing seemed to faze their hosts, Walker marveled as he considered the results of their hasty efforts. Not even a need to fashion temporary furniture to accommodate not one but five different body plans.

When their makeshift quarters were ready, it was left to Walker and his friends to decide, in concert with Commander-Captain Gerlla-hyn and his staff, if they should actually make use of them.

“The decision whether linger here or not rest with yous,” he told Walker and his friends. “This yous journey. I and my crews charged with conveying yous where and when yous desire. We will comply with your decision in this matter.”

George was all for continuing on as soon as possible. So was Sque, who thought no more of the accommodating Hyfft than she did of any species that had the misfortunate to be not-K'eremu. But Braouk found himself rather taken by their eager, would-be hosts, not to mention their ability to tolerate and even enjoy his interminable recitations. As for Walker, he confessed to taking pleasure from just walking on solid ground again, beneath a clear and open sky (if one that was a bit more yellow than usual) instead of the hard, cold ceiling of a ship corridor.

Furthermore, it was clear that their hosts were eager for them to stay awhile. They were almost painfully grateful that the visitors were something, anything, other than Iollth, and wished to have the chance to express those feelings. From years of trading on the Exchange, Walker was nothing if not sensitive to the need of others to express gratitude. He considered.

There was no rush to be on their way. Earth, K'erem, and certainly Tuuqalia would not change their positions—assuming the Niyyuuan astronomers led by Sobj-oes and her Hyfftian counterparts could actually locate any of them.

The scientists needed time to do their work. Despite Gerlla-hyn's assertions, Walker suspected that if polled, the Niyyuuan crews of the three ships would have voted en mass for the interstellar equivalent of shore leave.

“I think it would be a good thing all around if we stayed here awhile,” he told the Commander-Captain.

Gerlla-hyn's verbal acknowledgement of Walker's response was terse and formal—but from the way his frill erected and his tails coiled, Walker knew that the Commander-Captain was as pleased as anyone by the human's decision.

It was two days later, after they had been installed in their hastily but stylishly modified temporary quarters, that Walker encountered Sque sitting alone in the rain outside the building. Since even Hyfftian commercial-industrial areas were artfully landscaped, there were tri-trunked tree things and a peculiar reddish-gold brush all around. Woven more than excavated, a small stream caressed the northern edge of the warehouse boundary. That was where he found the K'eremu.

She was sitting in the shallow stream, letting it flow over her ten limbs, her upper body erect and clear of the cooling, moistening water. She did not even care if it carried industrial effluents or agricultural runoff. Under the dark sky, her maroon skin glistened almost black. Closed when he appeared, her recessed, silvery eyes opened at his approach. Even today's selection of the brightly colored bits of metal and ceramic that decorated her person seemed unusually subdued.

Making his way carefully down the slick side of the embankment, he halted just beyond the edge of the lapping water and crouched, the better to bring himself closer to eye level with her.

“What do
you
want?” Her tone, as conveyed through the Vilenjji implant in his head, struck him as even more bitter than usual. There were overtones, he thought, of depression.

“Just checking on you,” he replied. “This is a new world, after all.”

“A harmless world,” she hissed. “While of moderate intelligence, the inhabitants are inoffensive to the point of banality. I am in no danger here.” She did not thank him for his concern. Nor, knowing her as well as he did now, did he expect her to.

Even the rain here was agreeable, he decided. Warm and refreshing; not cold, not stinging. “Enjoying the water?” he asked conversationally.

Since she could not twist her upper body far enough around, she had to turn to face him, her limbs utilizing the purchase they held on the smooth rocks that lined the bottom of the manicured stream.

“I would have preferred to remain by the local sea. But it is best we all stay together. More important for you than for me.”

“I agree,” he said, hoping to mollify her. One hand gestured at the stream. “What are you doing? Just moistening up?”

She looked away from him. “I am lamenting. Quietly. Or at least, I was until you showed up.”

“Sorry,” he told her, genuinely apologetic. “What's wrong?”

This time when she looked back over at him, her horizontal pupils had expanded to their fullest extent. “What's wrong? What's
wrong
?” From her tone, it was apparent that his comment had finally exceeded even her capacity for sardonic reply. Nevertheless, she tried.

“I am alone, lost with and wholly dependent upon inferior beings. I have none to engage in intelligent discourse with, none with whom to debate issues of real importance. Never again will I be enfolded in the soothing, damp embrace of K'erem.”

Her manifest misery was so palpable that had it been expressed by anyone other than the redoubtable Sque, Walker would have been moved to tears. As a visual expression of sympathy, they would have been ineffective in the rain anyway.

“This doesn't sound like you, Sque. Well, not entirely like you. You've always shown so much confidence in our chances, even when it seemed we were going to be stuck on Seremathenn for the rest of our lives.”

Alien though they were, those metallic gray eyes could still convey the emotion that lay behind them. “And you've thought all along that I believed that. Lesser lifeforms are so easily deceived.” Her tentacles stirred sand from the streambed. “Such expressions of sanguinity as I may have declaimed over the past years were for your benefit, and that of your companion and that saga-spinning oaf of a Tuuqalian. Since you have all been necessary to my survival, it was necessary that I keep your own feeble, faltering spirits up.” She looked away, down the stream that did not lead to home.

“I have from the beginning never been anything other than realistic about our chances. I believe you yourself, in your simple, uncomplicated way, are equally aware of that reality.”

He refused to be disheartened by her despair. He knew nothing of other K'eremu, but this one, at least, he knew was subject to wild mood swings. Rather than go on the defensive, he tried as best he could to raise her spirits.

“Essentially, then, every expression of hope you've put forth has been for our benefit. I'm surprised you'd be so concerned for our mental welfare, even if such efforts were self-centered at heart.”

“I am equally surprised,” she retorted. “It is a sign of my advancing weakness in the face of utter despondency. I am losing my true K'eremu nature.” Tilting back her head and upper body in a single, supple curve, she regarded the benign but leaden sky. Rain fell in her open eyes, but did not affect her. “I will never get home. You will never get home. It is possible, just possible, that the Tuuqalian will get home—if these chittering, chattering, childlike natives with mild pretensions to intelligence can actually coordinate their primitive science with that of the only slightly less primitive Niyyuu. But you and I? We will never see our respective homeworlds again, except in dreams.”

They were both silent then, the only sound the tap-patter of gentle rain falling on and around them, plinking out piccolo notes in the mild flow of the stream. After several minutes of mutual contemplation of time, selves, and the alien yet comforting elements, Walker rose from his crouch, scrambled and slid down into the shallow brook, and sat down alongside the startled Sque. When he reached out an arm toward her—a heavy, human, inflexible, bone-supported arm—she started to flinch back. He waited until she was ready. Then he let his arm come down. Since she had no shoulders, and her upper body was one continuous smooth shape from head to lower torso, he let it rest against the place where two of her ropy limbs joined to her body. She did not move it away.

Later, two more of her own appendages writhed around and came to rest atop his wet, hirsute arm. He did not move them away.

With nothing better to do at the moment, George went looking for his friend. It took a while and several exchanges with busy (were they always so busy? the dog wondered) Hyfft before he was directed to a drainage canal outside the converted warehouse.

Through the steady but tranquil drizzle he finally saw them, sitting side by side in the middle of the drainage ditch, Walker's arm around the base of the K'eremu, a couple of Sque's serpentine limbs lying across the man's arm. The dog watched them for a moment, pausing only once to shake accumulated rain from his shaggy coat. Not knowing what was going on but deciding in any case not to interrupt, he turned and trotted back toward the dry shelter of the big warehouse. He would find out what it was all about later. Walker would tell him, whether he wanted to know the details or not.

Meanwhile, if nothing else, at least the acid-tongued, barely tolerable, know-it-all ten-legs had finally discovered the one thing humans were really good for.

A
rtfully efficient though they were, it still took the Hyfft several days to properly prepare an appropriate greeting for their unexpected but most welcome multi-species visitors. While the initial, hastily adapted warehouse was continuously upgraded to provide better temporary living quarters for the guests, a second structure nearby underwent feverish preparations for use as a center of celebration. Most pleased of all by these developments were the ever-active agents of the Niyyuuan media, who found kindred spirits (if not equivalent fanatics) among those Hyfft charged with relaying the details of the forthcoming gathering to the rest of their utterly engrossed society.

Inexpressibly relieved to learn that the newcomers were neither Iollth nor allies of the anticipated marauders, and in fact had never heard of them, the population of Hyff prepared to put forth the very best of their ancient, extensive, and admirable culture. The best singers and callers were flown in from all across the multiple continents, while specialist chefs made preparations to provide the visitors with the finest local victuals their systems could tolerate. In this Walker found himself, once again, something of a minor celebrity. Nominal leader of the expedition or not, he possessed gustatory expertise that was in constant demand by those seeking to satisfy the appetites of Niyyuu, Tuuqalian, K'eremu, and canine alike. He almost forgot to request certain foods for himself.

The Hyfft being strict vegetarians limited his input somewhat, but he was still able to surprise their hosts with some of the tricks of which the modern culinary technology he had mastered was capable. So it was that he found himself simultaneously enjoying the fruits of Hyfftian cuisine while helping to prepare it. It was more real work than had been required of him since they had left orbit around Niyu.

He enjoyed every bit of it immensely.

For one thing, the Hyfft were not only easy to work with, they were a delight to be around. Averaging a meter in height, with rounded furry bodies and darting black eyes, they reminded him of active bear cubs, though with saturnine faces, complex attire, and dexterous four-fingered hands and three-toed feet. They acceded readily to his suggestions. Nor was the exchange of culinary information exclusively one-way.

The official festivities, which local media broadcast around the globe and contented Niyyuuan monitors recorded with barely restrained glee, began on a worldwide holiday that the current (and much relieved) planetary Delineator had just established by executive fiat. It was to continue for an entire local four-day. Work did not stop entirely, but there was no question the locals were enjoying the unprecedented celebration at least as much as the visitors. Rotating crews by thirds allowed every Niyyuuan technician, soldier, and general crewmember to enjoy a day of it while also participating in basic ground leave. It was something to see one of the slender, graceful, two-meter-tall Niyyuu loping lithely through Therapp surrounded by an aurora of adoring, awestruck locals.

Sated with celebration, Walker and George decided to take some time to trek the city's extensive botanical gardens. These were garlanded with a riot of alien growth that, other than containing a passing affection for the local variety of photosynthesis, were more different from the flora they were familiar with back home than a saguaro was from a sequoia. Taking the tour also allowed them to bring along their own food. After three days of nonstop ingesting of vegetable matter, no matter how superbly prepared, omnivore human and carnivore canine both craved meat. Or at least, meat products. By not attending the day's festivities, they were able to enjoy food from their ship without offering insult to the Hyfftian population at large.

Among their guides (or handlers, as George continued to insist on referring to them) were the astronomer Ussakk, the linguist Mardalm, and a senior, darkly furred government representative who went by the euphonious moniker of Sehblidd.

Trotting alongside the diminutive civil servant made George look bigger than he was. “So tell me, Sehby: What are these Iollth really like and how often do they show up to pick on your kind?”

The bureaucrat's eyes were deeper set than those of the majority of Hyfft, giving him an atypically severe appearance that was belied by his effusive personality. The subject of George's inquiry, however, was enough to dampen his customary enthusiasm. Brushing past a grove of diminutive trees, whose brown trunks were striated with startling streaks of bright orange, he considered how best to respond.

“They are a terrible folk.” The delegate's tone was devoid of the usual cheerful chirps that characterized Hyfftian speech. “Of course, I myself have thankfully never actually seen one. The last Iollth raid on Hyff occurred before the time of my birth.” Breaking off from a protruding branch what appeared to be a four-petaled flower but was actually more lichen-like, he inhaled its sharp fragrance and passed it along to Walker. Tentatively, the human sniffed the odd-looking growth and was rewarded with a noseful of tingling bouquet not unlike crushed pepper.

“It is very peculiar,” Ussakk put in, joining the conversation. “Though we ourselves shy away from interstellar travel, the economics of it are not difficult to assess. As it seems impossible any raid by a few starships on another developed world could justify the expense incurred in doing so, our mental analysts propose that the Iollth must obtain more than just fiscal profit from their wicked enterprise.”

Short arms behind his back, Sehblidd let out a terse whistle of revulsion. “It has been suggested that they make these occasional forays for the purpose of plundering and destroying because something in their racial nature compels them to do so.”

“In other words,” George observed sagely, “because they enjoy it.”

The delegate's whiskers rose noticeably, signifying his agreement. “It's difficult to imagine how any species calling itself civilized can embark on such a vile endeavor. But what other reason could there be?”

“Excuse me for saying so,” Walker put in, “but this kind of motivation relates pretty closely to what I do—to what I used to do—for a living. It's been my experience that sometimes individuals or groups will go out of their way to get something, even paying more for it than it's worth, that they can't acquire any other way but that they desperately want.”

“Yes, yes.” Sehblidd gestured absently. “We know that is the case with certain minerals. At least, we assume it is the case. It is almost too much to imagine that the Iollth would rather cross the void between the stars to obtain something they could otherwise acquire by simple mining.”

Tail metronoming as he walked, George shrugged expressively. “Hey, I know a couple of dogs just like to fight. They'd rather steal your food than go find their own. To their way of thinking, it's more rewarding.” He glanced up at Walker, then away. “I'm not above snitching somebody else's bone myself, if I can get away with it without losing a piece of ear in the process. Humans, of course, never do anything like that.”

“Don't insult me until I've admitted to something,” Walker chided his friend. He looked back at Sehblidd. “Your people have weapons. Advanced ones, from what little I've seen and learned about such things. You have local and planetary entities that are organized to handle law enforcement. Seems to me you could put together an army pretty quick.”

Sehblidd tilted his head back to meet the eyes of the much taller human. “It would be counterproductive. Small arms are little use against weapons that can be launched from space. There have been, in the past, discussions about building armed satellites with which to surprise our tormentors. That technology is not beyond us. But the one time we offered armed resistance, we were badly defeated. The consequences were terrible. If we were to try to employ something like mobile, weaponized satellites and even one Iollth ship were to escape such a counterattack, it could rain incalculable destruction down on Hyff that we would not be able to defend against.” His dark eyes glistened. “Or worse, it could flee, and return with a much larger force that would not be surprised a second time, at even greater cost.” He looked away, letting his short arms fall to his sides.

“The general consensus is that it is better to allow the Iollth their infrequent incursions, tolerate their brief depredations, and fulfill their demands, than to risk devastation on a far greater scale.”

“I'm familiar with that philosophy,” Walker murmured softly. “It's part of the history of my kind, too. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.”

“We have adapted to the necessity,” Mardalm told him, speaking up for the first time. “That is the situation now. It has been stable, if uncomfortably so, for many thousands of day-slices.”

“And you're overdue for a visit from these merry marauders?” George inquired again.

Sehblidd gestured positively once more. “Hence our reaction at your arrival in our system. We are visited so rarely by space-going species, and it has been so long since the last Iollth incursion, that we were certain you were them. Or their friends, or allies.”

“What you folks need,” George declared as he sniffed intently at an aromatically attractive bush before a frowning Walker nudged him away, “are a couple of big dogs of your own. The techno-military equivalent of a mastiff on one side of you and a rottweiler on the other.”

Confused, Sehblidd and Ussakk fiddled with their translating units. It was left to the linguist Mardalm to try to interpret. “I believe the quadruped George is referring to large, powerful creatures from his own domain. The analogy is clear, even if the biology is unreferenceable.”

They were approaching the shallow artificial lake that lay in the center of the gardens. Search as he would, Walker was unable to espy a plant or blade of growth that was out of place. Even in their landscaping, it seemed, the Hyfft were orderly to a fault.

“Of course,” Sehblidd ventured unexpectedly as they continued their stroll, “if we were to have the aid of the aforementioned ‘big dogs' in the form of armed space-going craft that had the ability to confront the Iollth on their own terms, resistance might be possible. As you already know, we have no such vessels, nor the ability to construct them, nor the inclination to pilot them.” Bright black eyes locked onto Walker's own. “Other species, however, do.”

Walker halted and stared down at the diminutive delegate. Ussakk the Astronomer and Mardalm the Linguist were eying him with equal intensity, he noted. So was George, though more out of casual curiosity than with intensity.

“Are you asking for our help?” were the first words out of Marcus's mouth.

Ever the diplomat, Sehblidd kept his whiskers carefully parallel to the ground. “It was
your
companion who brought up the need for the weak to seek out strong allies.”

“My companion has a big mouth.” Walker glared down at George with an expression that said clearly,
That's right—put me in the middle.

“In the first place,” he told the trio of suddenly very attentive Hyfft, “we're trying to get home. Involving ourselves in an ongoing armed conflict between two other species wouldn't exactly hasten us on our way.”

“Certainly true,” agreed the respectful Sehblidd.

“In the second place, this isn't a military expedition.”

“But you travel with individual weapons and armor. Surely your ships carry armament as well?” Ussakk asked.

“Yes, they do, but they're for defensive purposes only,” Walker countered protectively.

“Understandable,” agreed the ever amenable delegate, whiskers locked rigidly in place.

“And lastly,” Walker concluded, “that kind of decision isn't up to me. It lies with Commander-Captain Gerlla-hyn and the captains and staff of the three Niyyuuan starships who are trying to help us find our way home.”

“Of course,” Sehblidd acknowledged without argument.

“Besides which,” George added forcefully, intrigued at the direction conversation had taken, “you don't even know when these Iollth are liable to hit you again. Could be next week, could be next century. Even if we and our pack friends had a collective attack of temporary insanity, we can't hang around here waiting for them to put in an appearance. When I suggested you needed strong allies, I meant allies who'd be available to assist you all the time. Not casual passersby like ourselves.” He looked up at Walker. “After the celebrations and the exchange of mutual howdy-dos are over, we're out of here. Right, Marc?
Marc?
”

“What? Oh, sorry, George. I was just thinking.”

“Well, don't,” the dog instructed him. “It tends to get us into trouble. Unless you're thinking about cooking. And sometimes that gets us into trouble, too.”

“Then you won't help us?” Sehblidd murmured. Three pairs of dark eyes continued to gaze mournfully up at the tall human.