The Companions (25 page)

When Gavi was four or five, something had gone wrong in the cave, something more wrong than usual. Gavi became aware of it only when the shouting escalated and she felt the all too familiar blow of a belt across her back, the signal to start running downward into ways too narrow for older people to follow. That time she had gone down farther than ever before, for her flight had attracted the attention of a band of young tribesmen, brainless young males led by a wiry, evil boy-child whom the others called Belthos.

It had taken almost all her strength to stay ahead of them, and finally, driven to the end of that childish strength, she had committed the foolishness of crawling into a crack with one turn so narrow that while the boy could not enter it, neither could she turn around. She had no choice but to go on, slithering and creeping, finally arriving at an opening into a smooth bubble in the stone, a spherical cell evenly heated by hot springs, a rounded den with no cutting edges and with three openings: the one she had come in by; another that split into two tunnels, one to the abyss she had just left, the other to a neighboring gorge in Burrow Tribe lands; and a third one, straight through the wall of the plateau onto rocky shelf above the mosslands, high enough to be hidden but low enough on the cliff that one could see what was happening down there.

This shelf was laid out in hexagons, the remains of the great basalt crystals that had broken off to make the ledge, one of them broken slightly higher than the others to provide a convenient seat. The ledge lay directly behind a cascade
that had deeply notched the escarpment rim, a cataract so shredded by winds that long before reaching the shelf it had become a veil of fog, a soft screen through which one might observe the lower mosslands while remaining quite invisible…and wet. Moreover, from this lookout ledge a narrow and hidden trail extended behind pillars and through cracks down the face of the escarpment to an exit at its foot amid a tumble of boulders. Even the way out of the boulders was tricky, though Gavi knew immediately it had been used before. Intrusive rock corners had been knocked off purposely, with repeated blows, and a store of firewood was piled in a crack, protected from above.

At first, Gavi had used the warm bubble lair only as a retreat, a place to escape punishment or evade harassment. Soon, however, as she repeatedly explored the route down onto the mosslands, she discovered that living was much easier down there than it was on the height. It was warmer. Water was easy to come by. Food was more abundant. Some moss trees oozed delicious and satisfying sap that dried into ready-made candies. Some extended long, arched branches where tart-flavored fruiting bodies hung like rows of bells. There were many crabs, and some of the small, tan-furred creatures that lived among the moss were quite tasty when cooked. Even the fire was no problem. One had only to dig up chunks of old mossroot and stack them in any cave to dry. Moreover, in the moss forest she had no one to feed but herself. In this land there were no sullen drifters snatching her slender gleanings from her fingers before she had a chance to swallow them.

Each time she went back up to the lair, she carried a few flat chunks of broken stone, gradually filling the bottom of the spherical chamber to give it a level floor large enough to sleep on. This she covered with soft mosses brought up from below. She trapped crack rats and skinned them to make a cover for her bed and a coat for herself. She sneaked out in the deep night and stole clothing from caves high up in the Burrow lands, enough that she had a change of clothing
when one set needed washing. All these things she had either seen done by others or figured out for herself.

Even during her earliest moss gleanings she encountered the Mossen. She watched (something she was good at) and mimicked (something else she was good at) and after a time she joined in their dances. She had no companions and no other amusement than what went on with them and their world. No human child had ever gone among the Mossen. No human child had ever learned the language of the Mossen, which could be learned only when one was a child. And, having learned that language, though she was not equipped to speak it, she applied the information it conveyed to problems she had, thus becoming able to do things others could not do, for she understood the reality around her as others could not.

The people of her plateau called themselves the Night people of Night Mountain, or sometimes, Abyssians. They lived in the darkness of the crevasses, warmed by the hot springs in the stone, illuminated by light shafts and by candles made from wax-vine. They wore crab armor when they made their rare forays across the moss world to battle Day Mountain people, who lived in stone houses atop their plateau, houses planted with vegetation which hid them completely. Day and Night were the two halves of one people, moieties of the survivors and seekers.

They all wore armor even when they went out onto the top of the escarpment near their homes. They could not feel the world through the rigid shells they shaped to their own need; they could not see it or smell it clearly through their masks, but since the people of the Abyss presumed that dreadful things could happen to humans among the mosses and were determined to prevent its happening to them, not being able to feel a dangerous world did not seem a disadvantage.

It had taken the child Gavi no time at all to realize that armor could be used as a disguise. When she grew strong enough, she found a young crab that had just shed its shell, and she killed it before the new one could harden. She cut
and bound shapes of the shell around her arms and legs, her chest and back as she had seen the armor makers do, shaping it to herself. The crab head made her helmet and mask, and when the armor was dry, she polished it with stones, decorated it with fantastic designs, connected the parts of it with quilted fabric at neck, shoulder, and waist, at elbow, hip, and knee, and in this disguise she walked openly upon the paths of the Abyss. From behind the anonymity of her visor she traded skins and fruits at the market, acting as an adult among adults, though she was not yet fourteen.

She was quick to detect danger and even quicker to avoid it. Her lair was her refuge from males who pursued her, as a few of them did, attracted by her voice or her smell. Belthos was a constant harrier, an unworthy contender for her favor if that was what he was about. Time after time she lost him, and the others, in the mazes of the Abyss, and they never discovered her lair.

By the age of fifteen, she had accumulated enough coin to apprentice herself to the Guild of Scent-mixers, the most ancient of the guilds among the tribes. Apprentices of the guild—which had chapters on both Day Mountain and Night Mountain—could be anyone: Day people or Night people, old or young, male or female. During her three-year apprenticeship at the local Shrine of Survival, a place where all outward distinctions of gender, tribe, or age were set aside, she had learned and followed the rules without question. She learned the scent-mixer jargon, invented by the guild to disguise their almost total ignorance of the craft they were engaged in, just as the Mental-Medicine jargon covered an ignorance even deeper. During tests, she recited the guild's own gibberish back to the examiners, thus gaining their approbation. No one questioned her right to be certified as a scent-mixer, first class.

Once the certificate was in her hand, she set about forgetting everything they had taught her as she perfected the practice of her art. Her reputation grew. Others would willingly have learned from her, but she told them she had gone to the
same school as they, omitting to mention the Mossen, intercourse with whom was forbidden in any case. Since her understanding came from the language of the Mossen and other persons did not know that language, teaching others what she knew was impossible. She would take apprentices, yes, in order to have helpers, and she would teach them what she did, but she could never teach them what she understood.

“Give me a child,” she said to one eager importuner. “Give me a child three or four years old, and I will raise that child to know my craft.”

So far, no one had felt driven to do so. Children were not numerous among the people of either mesa, and they were treasured as the rarities they had become. Time on time, Gavi blessed the inadequacies of her own childhood while remaining thankful that her family had all died of jar juice. Had she not been born among the Bottom Feeders, she might never have had the great fortune to grow up as she did; had they not died, she might have been encumbered by them. As it was, she was as she was, and there was no one to whom she owed loyalty, or love, or trust, no one to whom she was indebted at all.

I know all about her, and she about me, even those things we tried to hide from ourselves. Though neither she nor I knew it then, we were to become the dearest of friends.

Shortly after our arrival in system Garr'ugh 290, the captain announced we would set down on the moon, Treasure, to pick up some botanical samples for PPI. Paul was greatly annoyed by this, and his annoyance was, as usual, shared with others. For relief, I went to visit the dogs. They had traveled as we had, asleep when we slept, awake when we were awake. They and the trainers had a large suite—large for transport, that is—and the dogs were pacing the larger stateroom like caged animals, which, of course, I reminded myself they were.

“Awf!” said Behemoth, the moment I came in.

I shook my head, no. “This is just a brief stop, Behemoth. We'll be on the ground less than an hour.”

“Owr ome,” he said, facing me, eyes glittering.

“That's the plan, yes.”

“Wan see.”

“I know. But you can't see it without being seen by the crew, or by Paul, and that would ruin everything. Only the captain and a couple of his officers know that we're dropping off some cages. We figure six months, a year from now, this will be home for you, but it's not ready yet.”

“Ow no rrrea'y.”

“How? It's not ready because you'd starve to death. The animals we're dropping off need another year to spread and reproduce.”

Scramble turned to Behemoth and rubbed against his neck. I felt the message she was transmitting somehow, by gesture, by scent. She was saying, “Be patient. It's all right. She's doing her best.”

I left them as I found them, Behemoth impatient, Scramble counseling patience, the others willing to abide by whatever the alpha dogs agreed upon. On my way back to my own stateroom, the captain announced that atmosphere and gravity were suitable for type-C persons, and passengers could debark briefly, at their own risk. We had arranged this, so I could get Paul out of sight. I went to collect him, but, naturally, he didn't want to get off the ship at all.

“Think of it!” I said as charmingly as possible. “A small, heavy moon with a breathable atmosphere and almost earth gravity, a moon with rivers, lakes, and forests, a moon called Treasure, and we're getting to see it at no extra charge. Not a dozen humans have been on this gem of a moon, and here you are, one of them.”

He brightened at this. “It might be worth an item for ICN,” he murmured. “Bit of travelogue.”

Nonetheless, once outside, he muttered, “Ridiculous,” as he pulled his collar up over his ears. His irritation during and for some time after space travel came from his conviction that the medium through which we moved was highly inimical to human life and only constant concentration would hold him together long enough to arrive anywhere. “Couldn't they have run out here at any time to pick up their samples? Haven't they had years to pick up samples?”

“Presumably there was something in particular that was needed this time.” I took his arm in mine and tugged him into a reluctant promenade, chivvying him ahead of me down the slope. “Come on, let's get a look at those bearded trees or whatever they are.”

“Who owns this?” Paul demanded.

I shrugged, disclaiming knowledge. Who really owned it was nobody's business. The moon, gem that it was, had been snapped up the moment it appeared on the market, and ru
mors had been spread variously: that it would be a center of religious work, or a racial enclave, or a cultural, artistic, musical, sexual, dietary, financial, or fraternal group, or perhaps even a housing world for the elder elite of some overcrowded planet. Since it had been sold through several brokers and bought through several agents, no one knew who actually owned it, and the matter aroused as little interest in the PPI office on Earth as it did on either Moss or Stone. People there had more urgent problems to consider.

Interstellar Coalition protocols provided that moons or planets could be
sold
at buyer's risk without certification from PPI and ESC, but that no moon or world could be
occupied
until certification was received. The owners of Treasure had not asked for certification, and so far as anyone knew, the moon remained undisturbed except for ESC ships dropping in now and then to take botanical samples. This was generally true of most ark planets, but this was the first time I had set foot on one of them.

We soon were out of sight of the ship ramp and of Adam, Clare, and Frank, together with the two officers, who were driving a carrier down the ramp and away into the taller growth across the clearing.

I drew Paul's attention to the other direction. “This growth covers everything! I can see why no one found the Hargess ships on Moss until just recently. Did I tell you, I found out something about it from Myra?”

“Myra Hessing? What are you having to do with her?” He sounded not merely dismissive, which I might have expected, but miffed. Hearing the ring of temper, I concentrated on being casual.

“Oh, I ran into her at temple. She was quite nice, in a let bygones be bygones kind of way. You had mentioned the Hargess ships, and I, making conversation, asked her if she knew what ships they could be. She sent a communiqué to our last transship point.”

“Saying?” he asked reluctantly, attempting to sound uninterested.

“Saying they could be part of a fleet of ships that was lost well over two centuries ago. Their last transmissions said they were taking a side trip, seeking Splendor.”

“Splendor?” He shook his head. “What?”

I walked farther downhill, saying over my shoulder, “I first heard the words from Matty. She got them from a Zhaar translation of a Martian cave writing.”

“Nonsense. No one ever translated Martian.”

“It's in the IC Elder Races Archive,” I said, firmly. “There were Zhaar seals all over the writings, and Matty paid an IC linguist to translate it into common speech.”

“Matty? Don't be ridiculous.”

He was making me angry. “She did, Paul. Joram, Tad, and I know all about it, but you never went to see Matty, and you seldom talked with Joram.”

“You probably mean Saik Sp'laintor” he said, grudgingly. “The Saik Sp'laintor story was included in some unattributed writings that I translated as part of my advanced placement assignment. It involves a search for the spiritual home, rather like Eden in human mythology. I suppose the root words could be Zhaar, though I'd have guessed one of the ancestral languages of the Phain, among the forgotten tongues that IC has collected from abandoned planets.”

“But to translate them, if the races who spoke them are gone…?”

“Lexicons and grammars exist in the archives of other races who are still around. Writings of the Zhaar could have been translated into Sarpta, for example…”

I interrupted. “Actually, it was into Panqoin, from that to Tsifis, then Gendeber, then Phainic.”

He ignored me. “What was the context of those words?”

“In a song that Matty sang:

He stood with his mouth slightly open, staring at me while I recited the words, then snorted, “Ridiculous! There's nothing like that in the work I translated.”

“Do you have the translation with you?” I asked, pretending interest.

“I suppose it's stored in one of the lingui-putes. I never throw anything away.”

“Do you remember anything about it?”

“It was about a…mystic world, a place separated from the real world by a kind of veil. I read it as a metaphor, a typical evocation of the world of the dead, of passing from life into a spiritual world, with a lot of philosophical discussion about protecting that world from harm, from taint, from being polluted by…whatever.” He snorted again. “It ran to several hundred thousand words in translation, but I've given you the pith of it.”

“Saik Sp'laintor sounds like paradise. If you find your translation, I'd like to read it.” We were far enough away, so I knelt to sniff at a particularly interesting blossom. “Oh, by the way, Myra says the people on the wrecked ships on Moss were employees of Fleurs de la Forêt.”

“The perfumery planet?”

“These particular ones were leaving Forêt to set up a sister planet somewhere else, because Forêt had run out of room for the flower fields. That was always Forêt's selling point. Real scents from real flowers, not made in laboratories. Do you remember the scent my mother used to wear?”

“Matty? It was something herbal, airy…”

“It was called Prairie, and it was from Forêt.” I noticed he was standing still, staring thoughtfully into space. “What?”

“You used the word,
paradise,
from an ancient earthian word meaning garden. Eden was a garden, of course. I'm trying to remember if Sp'laintor was supposed to be a garden…”

I said, “I have no idea. At any rate, the ships on the Moss plateau may well be the ships in question, because four of them were never accounted for. If someone would peel off
the moss and get the registration numbers, it would help.” I moved over toward some particularly extravagant growths, drawing his attention to them. “Have you ever seen so many shades of green or so many shapes? Leaves like cones, like cylinders, like needles, like threads, like short strings of beads! Look at that arched branch hung with tiny shiny bells! There's another, beyond, with bigger pendants! Here's a red bush, round as a ball, with golden tassels on it!”

I drew him along the edge of the elfin wood, chatting and exploring until the Klaxon sounded, at which point I cried, “There, samples all fetched. Not even time for you to get impatient.” Smiling happily, I led him back toward the ship, only to be stopped in my tracks, gasping. An odor had hit me in the face like a slap with a rotten fish.

He turned toward me, looking at me curiously. “What's the matter?”

He didn't smell it, though it was coming from across the clearing, from behind the ship, blown by the wind, a rank and woody reek that struck with almost physical force. The stench ended as suddenly as it had begun, cleanly, as though it were limited at an edge. Another odor followed, this one soft, floral…no, not floral, not spicy either. I lifted my head, sniffing, trying to determine what it was. Sweet, but alien. Sickly sweet. Unfamiliar. And…threatening? Yes, threatening. Like a smile through teeth.

Ahead of me, at the ramp, Adam stood facing the miniature woods, face empty, nostrils wide. As we approached, he turned toward us, eyes glazed. “Get aboard,” he whispered. “Quickly.”

We scrambled into the ship, which only moments later lifted off, leaving the smells behind. I stood in the lock, eyes closed, visualizing what I knew was happening there.

Deep in the growth of the stunted forest, some of the cages the trainers had placed there had already opened. Small furry things in those cages had smelled danger and were crouched into the smallest possible compass, nostrils squeezed, breathing slowed. Gradually they relaxed as their
noses tested ordinary air. Furry feet moved to the open door and through it. Long soft ears lifted high, bodies stood up on hind legs, eyes peered. Senses detected nothing but edible growth. For weeks they had been eating this same green, smelling this same smell.

Cautiously, the rabbits moved out and away, sniffing for water, hearing the drip of it somewhere nearby. The ship had landed near water, the site would not have been chosen otherwise. One of the rabbits, a pregnant doe, tried the soil with busy forefeet, hard claws chopping the moss and throwing it out behind her as she dug deeply into a deep bank of layered mosses. Fragments sprayed between her legs from the soft, friable substance beneath her. It held the shape she had dug, the round, clean beginning of a burrow. It was not sandy loam, but it was good for digging. Those who chose the site of landing had been careful about that as well, for pockets of deep soil were unevenly scattered upon this moon.

Rabbit instinct said, dig upward, into a hill, so the tunnel would not flood during storm. Instinct said, dig at the roots of something large and protective, roots that will support the overlying dirt and allow the excavation of sizable burrows. Instinct said, dig now, before the babies come, for a proper burrow will take time and only pregnant does dig burrows to house their bare, blind babies. The bucks made scrapes for themselves to lie in, relaxing in the sun or evening cool, but they did not excavate—which didn't keep them from crowding into the burrows when the weather was wet or cold or they wanted company.

Behind the doe, a woodchuck scurried from another cage and also tried the soil, finding both it and the greenery around it satisfactory. Woodchucks were egalitarians, both sexes dug and stood guard, as was evidenced by the animals who followed the first one, each standing erect and searching both sky and forest for danger, seeing none. No snake, no hawk, no fox. The next cage released hares who bolted from the cages the moment they opened: darting, doubling, switching, finding sheltered places and freezing into immo
bility, becoming invisible. The hares were also does, but they did not dig. Their life was on the surface, where they bore fully furred, open-eyed young. In this place they saw no threat, no threat, as yet…

Mice slipped from the next cage, out and away under the nearest something, behind the nearest something, crouching, black eyes swiveling, whiskers twitching, turning to smell the way back to the box, then a little farther away, and back, mouse-trailing out, returning, farther out, back, farther out yet, learning the way from safety into the unknown, excreting little pellets all along the way.

As the rabbits did likewise, choosing a place they would use for that purpose. As the hares and the woodchucks did, careless about the distribution. All the excreta were full of the tiny, hard-shelled seeds they had been fed on the ship, indigestible seeds of tasty, noninvasive plants that would suck up into themselves trace minerals the local growths had not evolved to use but earth creatures needed to survive.