The Companions (34 page)

There were only a few moments of this exhilaration, all too brief a time. Scramble returned to the floater to check on the pups, leaping aboard and nosing me affectionately, letting me know I was still her puppy, I guess. The pseudodogs tired more quickly than real dogs, so they were next to return. Adam leapt back into the floater, soon followed by Clare and Frank. They didn't change shape, just lay there, panting. When they had rested enough, they leapt off and ran once more.

The floater was equipped with directional finders fed by the orbital surveyors. I kept the line of movement generally eastward, seeing the escarpment rising gradually before us
as though all that immensity of stone were growing taller the closer we came. Once in a while, trees or taller growths made us veer to one side or another, but there were no long detours. We made excellent time, stopping for lunch and water when the dogs came to run behind the floater, panting heavily.

By evening, we had approached closely enough that the scattered mists from the waterfalls occasionally wafted over us. I parked the floater and laid my bedding on a nearby moss bank. The dogs, nine of them, curled up around me, though Scramble would not settle until she and Behemoth had moved the puppies into the midst of the huddle. The winds fell with nightfall, and it became warmer without the mists. I lay with Adam's back curled against mine, Veegee on one side of my legs and Wolf on the other. All the dogs, real and unreal, slept at once, but I remained awake for a time, staring up at the treetops where fringes and curtains of moss moved of their own accord, slowly though perceptibly changing their patterns. An opening was first a star, then a circle, then a more complicated star with fringes. I considered setting up a time-lapse recorder to preserve the effect, but I was too warmly, comfortably joyous to move.

Quynis, bride of Lynbal, Lady of Loam, almost immediately after being married had formed the habit of sleeping late and eating huge breakfasts. It was said among the kitchen people of Loam that she had gained one quarter of her weight over again in the first flush of honeymoon. Certainly, she was a far better-looking woman than the starveling waif who had first arrived. Now she was pink, becomingly rounded, with shiny hair and glistening eyes, the object of her young husband's complete devotion.

“Marriage suits you,” her father told her as she was helping him pack for his journey back to the Granite Caves of his tribe.

“Will you ask Quillan to come visit me?” she begged. “I have something important to talk to him about.”

“Now, why should your twin be visiting you so soon? Ha? He just left, ten days or so ago. One would think you should be contented with your new husband for a time, not needing a brother for anything useful.”

“Oh, Papa, but it is for something useful. He says he's ready to decide upon a bride, so he'll be needing to come back very near here, won't he? To the gem mines? To get stones for an offering bracelet?”

He looked into her eyes, finding only an innocent joy welling there. Now why hadn't the rapscallion mentioned it to him if he'd found a girl? “If you say so, daughter. He tells me very little, and most of that unimportant.”

“Well, he did tell me. So, ask him to stop and visit me on his way to the mines. Tell him to do it
on the way,
not after he's been there. Now that you and Chief Larign are allies, he may come through Loam lands, mayn't he?”

He chuckled to himself. The minx wanted gemstones for something. Something for that cock-o'-the-heap of a husband of hers. Well, why not. Quillan had attended the wedding, but he had returned home the day following. He was the heir, and it was considered good sense not to have both the chief and the heir gone from tribal lands for any length of time—except during the decennial wars, when everyone left except the women, children, and old people. Such folk would stay safe enough so long as all the predatory types were part of an army, and the army was elsewhere. At other times, leaving tribal lands untended gave too much temptation to greedy neighbors. If Quillan was ready to decide upon a bride, however, custom demanded that he make a trip to the gravel mines in the rivers at the foot of the plateau and there search out stones to make an offering gift. Offering gifts denoted sincerity, a willingness to make a considerable effort, and though only chiefs' sons had the tradition of acquiring gemstones, even lesser men spent a good deal of time and thought on such matters.

Lynbal had given Quynis a necklace of greenstones set in gold, a goodly gift, yes, but it was said he had had someone else find the stones for him. Quilac had worried a good bit about that. Suitors who were sincere would let no hand but their own touch the stones until the gem cutter got them. Lynbal might have been casual, even contemptuous before; he certainly wasn't now. Now Quilac's mind was so set at rest that he could bid his daughter farewell with an untroubled mind. Surrounded by his men, he set off for home.

That afternoon, one of the more influential men of Loam sent a messenger to Gavi Norchis, asking her to come treat his wife for what he, himself, thought was an imaginary ailment. Gavi came to Loam, diagnosed the ailment, which was far from imaginary, and told the man to take his wife to
the Medical Machine as quickly as might be. The Medical Machines from the old ships still worked, though they were reserved for serious illness or accident.

As she was leaving by way of a winding and deserted hallway that would let her out near the trail to her favorite dwelling place, someone pssted at her from a doorway, and she turned to see the radiant face of the bride, Quynis, who laid a quick hand upon Gavi's arm and drew her into the small room.

“I need to speak with you privately,” she said, beaming from ear to ear. “Scent Mistress, I waited, hoping to see you. Can you tell me what fee you would charge to assure one would look upon my brother with loving eyes?” The words came out all at once, in a spurt, followed by a little laugh. “I didn't mean to blurt at you like that. It's just…I'm so happy. I want my brother Quillan to be happy, too.”

Gavi seated herself on the only piece of furniture in the room, a small, low table, and gave the girl a good looking over. Oh, yes, she was much improved. Pregnant, without a doubt. “Happy, are you?”

“Oh, Scent Mistress. So happy.”

“Is your brother Quillan much like you?” she asked.

“Oh, no.” Quynis shook her head violently. “No, Quillan is handsome and strong and tall. He's pleasant, too, to everyone. But the woman he is in love with is very lovely, and it may be she might be…She could…Perhaps he wouldn't be…”

“Perhaps he wouldn't be her idea of a perfect husband?” asked Gavi.

“Yes. He might not be. Granite is not such a rich place as Loam. To be Lady of Granite might not be…as attractive as being Lady of some other place.”

“Who is the woman?” Gavi asked, cutting through all the circumlocutions.

“Lailia. My new sister. My brother saw her. I've never seen anyone go into it like that, so quickly. He was just…”

“Ah,” said Gavi. “He was taken by her, yes?”

“At once. One glance. I saw it happen.”

“Well. Let me think on that.”

“Can you tell me your charge?”

Gavi smiled, hiding the little flames in her eyes by casting them downwards, modestly. “For true love, perhaps there would be no charge. But I would need to see him first.”

The girl crowed, “He's coming here, to visit me. Can I send word to you…”

“That won't be necessary.” Gavi smiled. “People in the market let me know all the gossip, who is going where, and why, and when they will return. He's a good boy, your brother?”

“Oh, he's not a boy at all, Scent Mistress. Truly. Though we were born at the same time, he grew into a man far quicker than I grew into a woman. Until I came here, that is. I was stuck, somehow. I could feel it, the being stuck, unable to go on growing inside myself. Now I feel myself becoming more womanish every day, but Quillan has been a man a great while, and he is a good man, yes. The people love him.”

Rare and wonderful indeed to have a chief's son who was loved by his people. Gavi smiled encouragingly. “Indeed. I will see you both, then, when he comes.”

She stood, patted the girl kindly on her shoulder, and took herself off while reflecting upon the vagaries of fate. She was determined upon squaring her account with Belthos of Burrow. She believed Chief Larign had his eyes on Belthos's son for Lailia. She approved of alliances, but she did not approve of Balnor marrying Lailia. She did not approve of Balnor marrying anyone, except, perhaps, one of the moss demons.

How could she do this and this without doing that and that, ah? A lovely puzzle. One that might keep her awake many nights running, figuring it out.

Walking Sunshine had sprouted as an ordinary willog, that is a whilesome talker, one who spent its youth making little messages: more fire smell (warmer) less fire smell (cooler) more receding smell of frond (longer) more approaching smell of treetops (higher). As it matured, it had grown its share of long messages: “Attention all moss, types briefstink, gooplop, rottenwood, and jellydrip. At the next warm send sporelings southward for a general remossening around Lake Stinks-of-Toothy-Things.”

Walking Sunshine had enjoyed being only a talker, though, inevitably, the time had come when it felt it wanted something more. That, actually, was its first inkling that it was, in fact, a willog, as willogs were notorious for wanting something more. To signify the change in status, it took the name Walking Sunshine (“Walky” to itself), and while it was still light in weight and agile in limb, volunteered as a thread-moss gatherer. Thread-moss grew everywhere in the forest, though mostly on lower limbs of trees, where it hung in festoons and veils, filtering both sunlight and moonlight, forming a backdrop for the messages that came through the mosslands. Thread-moss gatherers climbed into the trees, broke the moss from its anchorage, and transplanted it to the treetops, stretching it from tree to tree to make a sunshade for the sporelings planted in the soil beneath. Walking Sun
shine did this work for some years, until it grew too heavy and the trees complained.

By that time Walky was in late saplinghood, time to seek out some Mossy-Longtime-Rooted, where it would learn the logic of word formation, vocabulary, synthesis, order, and clarity. After a sometime search, he found such a Mossy one, already attended by a group of young willogs, among whom Walking Sunshine rooted itself happily, amusing itself and them by composing poetry, purely for their own amusement, of course. No late sapling would thrust its own compositions before the perceivers of a Grown-one, but making poetry was practice in the art of language, and practice was laudable.

Several sizable beds of eatmoss grew in the area, where elderly willogs came to lie a pleasant time in renewal and reformation. On one eventful day, however, a walking-bad-smell had come to lie there, a new walking-bad-smell, not one of those from Tall Rock. The bad-smell stayed on the eatmoss a while, then went away, but soon it was back again and again, and as the moss gradually ate it away, Walky's curiosity had moved it to run its rootlets up into the bad-smell for exploration. Wonder of wonders, with roots deeply embedded, it had heard! It had seen!

A revelation! A miracle! Walky had studied the eyes and ears until the walking-bad-smell had dwindled, then it had waited impatiently for other walking-bad-smells to lie on the moss. The fresher ones were easier to study, and Walky had grown eyes at once, not very good ones that first time, but workable enough to see color, and shape, and distance. Oh, marvelous distance! Challenging color! Intriguing shape! But that was only the beginning. Ears were next, and with the ears, sound.

All willogs had pretended to stay far away from bad-smells since the Tall Rock bad-smells had threatened willogs with fire. They could only pretend, not actually do, because the World needed them for things, and they had re
sponsibilities. Once Walky had ears and eyes, however, it gave up any pretense of avoiding bad-smells, uprooted itself, and went in search for more seeings and hearings, finding them in abundance at the bad-smell place beside Lake Stinks-of-Toothy-Things. There Walky
heard
things: Bells. Buzzers. Howling when ships came down. Hammering. Yelling. Singing…oh, singing. And whistling, too.

Keeping well hidden, Walky rooted itself to listen and to see, days on days. It saw bad-smells using their eyes toward pieces of stuff with marks on them, it heard them making sounds at the stuff, then others came and made the same sounds at the same marks. So it was Walky learned how words were written by the sounds they made and knew immediately that the World must be told of its discovery! At once, Walky shifted to reproduction mode and began growing messages, self-reproducing messages that came up already messaged from spores! Walky's messages, no matter how many generations later, said what the original message had said: “The bad-smells cannot detect our words. If we wish to understand the bad-smells, we must grow new organs. Genetics for new organs included in this message.”

Even while engaged in this flurry of information, Walky was learning more and more human words and how they were put together. As it learned them, Walky grew the words and sent them out, into the world.

Also, he continued to frequent the eatmoss beds—redmoss the bad-smells called it. Sometimes “crabs” got into the moss, and “beetles,” and “mousy” things. All of those creatures had eyes and ears, oh, such wonderful gifts. Crab eyes. Mouse eyes. Beetle eyes. All to be added to bad-smell eyes. Some eyes could see color, others not. Some were for seeing moving things, others to see still things. And a new creature had come, as well. A thing called dog by the bad-smells. Perhaps dog eyes would be different yet.

Walky's messages spread widely. Many of its messages were examined by other willogs, who thereupon grew ears
and eyes for themselves. Now, even some of the mosses had eyes, mouse eyes or crab eyes or beetle eyes. What wonders the bad-smells had brought!

Perhaps, Walky decided after much thought, it was not polite to think of them as bad-smells. They spoke of themselves as humans. Perhaps it would be more tactful to call them that.