The Companions (60 page)

“Excuse me, please, while I break the manacles, restraints, shackles, fetters, and chains that bind your fellow humans.”

He did so, seeming to enjoy the task. The warriors, without even taking time to talk it over, gathered up their weapons and ran back along the trail after the Orskimi who were chasing the Derac who were looking for food. As Walky broke Gainor's bonds, he remarked, “Gavi Norchis is on her way. I gave her small, young willog to guide her along, off the trail, so as not to encounter anyone.”

I thanked him, as did Gainor, and since we'd had nothing to eat since noon, and not much then, we dug out some rations and awaited Gavi's arrival. Walky settled itself beside me, remarking, “World is wanting to know who is cause of this battle?”

Gainor and I looked at each other. He shrugged.

“The battle began between the Derac and the Orskimi,” I said. “The cause of the fray was that the Orskimi tricked the Derac into attacking humans in order to start a Derac-human war so the Orskimi could take advantage of it to conquer the worlds of both peoples. The Derac tried to start the war at the battleground, as you know, but they were prevented from doing so by…willogs, mostly. The Orskimi don't know about willogs, so they blame the Derac.”

All Walky's branches were nodding, up down, up down, as it processed the information.

It said, “Orskimi were doing a bad thing, this bad thing was the first bad thing even though other bad things followed, so Orskimi are to blame.”

Gainor said, gravely, “No, that wouldn't be the first bad thing. The Orskimi became capable of doing this bad thing only because the Zhaar gave them the technology, long, long ago.”

“Then that was the first bad thing.”

“That would be the earliest bad thing anyone can remember,” Gainor agreed.

“Both Zhaar and Orskimi are to blame,” Walky said, firmly. “Then, World wants to know, who is responsible for ships coming down on top of Mountain if this is separate from the other bad thing.”

I sighed. “It's a separate bad thing. The woman who…owns the ships wanted to hurt me, and she ordered the ships to set down there because I was underneath them.”

I suppose in the last analysis, Dame Cecelia did own the ships, though there was undoubtedly a huge corporate structure of some kind between her and the responsibility for what “her” ships did.

“So this person is doing a bad thing not only to you and all the people there, but also to her own people on the ships?” Walky sounded thoroughly confused.

“This person does bad things all the time,” I said, with some vehemence. “She is so powerful, no one can control her.”

“What is this person's name?”

“Dame Cecelia Hessing. She is part of a powerful family, the Hessing-Hargess clan. They own many ships, they have a mercenary fleet, they have enormous businesses upon many worlds.”

“Good,” said Walky. “This is the very thing the World wants to know.”

It stood beside me in companionable silence while Gainor and I finished our lunch. As we put things away, we heard the hum of a little floater. It came slowly through the trees, carrying Gavi and a vociferous sapling, who was soon introduced to me as Brightleaf.

Gavi hugged me and greeted Gainor, turning to Walky to declaim, “We have to stop this. The whole middle of the plateau is on fire! The ships in the sky won't let the ships on Night Mountain take off. They just keep firing at them.”

“We have bigger trouble than that,” I told her. “The Zhaar are loose on Moss.”

She stiffened, and her face turned ashen. “How many?”

“Lots,” I said. I thought hundreds at least, maybe thousands, with who knew how many more in the edge of Splendor, in reserve.

“I wish there were somewhere we could go to observe the fighting,” Gainor said.

“Someplace high up?” asked Walky. “If so, we can have a high-up place not far from here. We will need to go carefully, quietly, not to get involved in this fracas, commotion, disturbance, uproar, or to-do.”

I couldn't think of a height anywhere near the area of the fighting. I'd seen the area both from the ship and from the top of the plateau, and all I could remember was flatness
broken by the occasional grove of tall trees. That's all we saw as we went, that's all we saw until we bumped into a low mound we hadn't even seen.

“Camouflage,” said Walky. “I did not understand the concept until I learned the word. When the World extrudes its eyes, they are camouflaged not to be much noticed by others. This is one of the World's eyes which we will get on top of. The World will not mind.”

I had no idea what it was made of. It was a quite substantial flat-topped mound, every inch of it clad in mosses that matched whatever one might be seeing from any conceivable angle. We were no sooner situated than the mound began to grow. It went upward at steady speed, at least as fast as tower lifts. As we rose, we saw that we were at the center of concentric circles of trees, circle after circle after circle, on and on past the limit of our sight. Once we could see the whole extent of the battle, the mound we were upon stopped rising. Gainor took some time setting up his tracking system and adjusting it, allowing us to see the battle through the fish-eyes.

Both Derac and Orskim were overmatched by the Zhaar, who were bigger, stronger, and faster. Derac and Orski weapons did not seem to touch them. The battleground, starting at the east side and working toward the west, was littered with the bodies of Orskim and Derac, but at most, half a dozen dead Zhaar.

“What will they do when they have killed all those two bad peoples?” Walky asked.

“They'll come after us,” I said. “Me particularly. And Gavi, and old Oskar. Where is Oskar? I haven't even thought of him since we've been back.”

Gainor said, “We have him stashed on one of our ships, up there. Whatever information he may have about the Zhaar is too important to risk losing. Also, he was in a lot of pain, and we can give him better medical attention on the ship.”

“I wish we had a power source,” I said. “Gavi could be sending out soothing odors, right now. Something to calm
them down. I wish we could broadcast the odor organ over a wide area.”

Walky shivered all over. “But you can. The trees down there are relayers. From here to the first circle of trees is the distance of message, then it is copied and goes on to the next circle, and on, and on, the circles growing bigger and bigger, until they go around world like a belt, then smaller again to another place like this one.”

I couldn't quite understand. “You mean that from this height, and I presume others like it, messages may be sent that are broadcast immediately? Then why in the name of all that's holy do we need all that business of growing words, and letting them ripen, and watching them dance?”

Walky rustled at me in indignation. “Because time spent is part of living,” it said. “Slowness, ripening; slowness, dancing; happiness spent in doing, smelling, understanding. If everything is all the time instantaneous, prompt and sudden, then no one is having any time to enjoy! Life becomes a plethora, a glut, a surfeit of instantaneous amusements barely leavening the job, the task, the thing to get through somehow that life becomes. Who would live a do this, do that, right now, hurry up, finish, all the time finish? Such life has no peace. It is a disease! I will name it the human disease.” It rustled again in indignation. “This is why World is insisting upon proper function before humans live on Moss. No more running about all the time.”

I set that aside. “But you say that from here, we can send odor messages?”

“In case of an emergency, speed is sometimes needed,” Walky said. “And World agrees, this is an emergency.”

“And what do we say to the Zhaar?” said Gainor. “They don't care what the World says. The odor language probably isn't even their native tongue.”

I shook my head at him. “It wasn't their native tongue, Gainor, but they've used it for a very long time. They may remember the former language, but I'd bet this is the one they will respond to emotionally.”

“Respond how? What're you going to hit them with? Home, family, fireside? That might actually work with the Derac, but Zhaar never had home, family, or fireside. Conquest, victory, achievement? That might work with the Orskimi, but Zhaar never had to conquer, they ruled whatever they wanted to, just by taking it over.”

“I wish there were some way I could hit them with remorse,” I snarled. “Though that's a forlorn hope.”

And while I thought, while Gavi set up the odor organ, the carnage below went on. Gradually, the Derac and the Orskim were learning how to kill Zhaar, and more Zhaar were added to the casualties. Gainor was trying to estimate Zhaar numbers from the screen, getting totals that varied between three and five thousand, each one a match for five to ten of the other races.

Our predicament was a round-robin kind of thing. If we could stop the bombardment of the Hessing ships, they could take off and knock down part of the armadas above us, but that really wouldn't affect the outcome on the ground. No matter who won on the ground, we were still at risk. Somehow, before that battle was finally won by the Zhaar, we needed a way to fight the Zhaar or a way to escape them. The only door we knew of was the one we had used, far to the west across a wide stretch of battleground and a lake. Walky could undoubtedly get there, but he had no way to open the door, which, in any case, led directly into Zhaar territory. I still had some hope for Phainic intervention, but both Gainor and I knew the Phain didn't make a habit of intervening on behalf of anyone.

As we sat there watching through fish-eyes and our own, the northernmost companies of Zhaar sent a skirmish line to the west, drawing a noose around both Orskimi and Derac. Then the line began to tighten, pressing the other races into a smaller compass, down toward the lake. They were rounding up the opposition. The end was certainly not far off.

Out of sheer desperation, I was about to suggest that we get ourselves back to the plateau, as it held the most defensi
ble positions we were likely to find anywhere, when an errant sparkle at the foot of our giant tower drew my eyes downward. It was definitely there. Not the same flash of light that had presaged the Zhaar. Quite different from that, softer-looking. Moreover, as I looked out, I saw clusters of such glitter, all outside the area of conflict, a vast arc of them. I reached for the glasses and looked more closely. The arc was a circle that enclosed the entire area of battle.

I reached out to Gainor, but before I could touch him, the lovely liquid speech of the Phaina fell softly upon us, and I turned to see her standing at the top of a suddenly created stairway, almost beside us.

“What a mess,” her 'pute murmured. “What a filthy mess.”

“I know,” I said, as guiltily as though I had personally created the situation below us. “Are all the Zhaar here, on Moss?”

“Virtually all. They left a few here and there in Splendor, but Phain and Yizzang have most of them rounded up by now. What are you doing here? I searched for you on Night Mountain.”

I told her, as quickly as I could, concluding, “…and when they've killed all the Derac and Orskim, they'll come after us…”

“They would plan to, true,” she said. “But I wish to speak to them first.” She turned to Gavi. “You are a scent mistress of this world?”

Gavi bowed. “I have some small skill.”

“You have a device there, to assist you?”

“It is quicker than the traditional way.”

The Phaina turned to me. “Our people have analyzed the so-called epic history of the Simusi, as told by them, determining which parts of it are true and which are false. We had to find out the truth of their history in order to validate judgments we have made about others. Judgments based upon untruths are not worthy of us.”

“Judgment,” I said, lost. “Of what, of whom…”

She raised her hand, shutting me off. “No questions now. In Splendor, we gathered the Zhaar and spoke with them. Oh, very long we spoke with them. They had more versions of their history than a charb bush has roots. We elicited all known versions from our captives, who, though reluctant to howl for us, preferred storytelling to the alternative we offered.

“We then put all versions together, to see what truth had been left out, what lies had been inserted. Our labors gave us a slightly different story. In the story you were told of, it was said the Zhaar adopted as slaves dogs they had seen on Earth because dogs had Zhaar shape. The opposite was true as you thought, Jewel. The Zhaar took dog shape as camouflage. It was a way to hide.

“Once they took dog shape, however, they found great difficulty in maintaining the shape when frightened or angry. Such emotions made the Zhaar change instinctively, as one of your Earth gastropods could change color, to avoid discovery. Even simple hunger, irritation, or confusion made it difficult for them to keep the shape continually, without lapse. They feared greatly for their lives, however, and they needed to be sure their disguise would not give way. Can you guess what they did?”

I stared at her for a long moment before the bell rang far in the depths of my mind. Adam. Frank. They, too, changed like lightning when they were frightened, or angry. And they had been…crossed.

I said, “They didn't use Zhaar genes on the dogs, they used dog genes on the Zhaar?”

“Quite right. They did. Proud of their flesh as they were, they used dog flesh because they had picked dogs for two reasons: dogs already had slaves with hands and speech; dogs were already Zhaarish in their ways. That is to say, dogs were packish. Dog family groups followed the most powerful leader, as did the Zhaar. The similarities between themselves and the dogs reduced their reluctance to play
with the stuff of their own bodies. They crossed themselves with dog flesh and carried that shape within them.

“Only then could they cleave to it continuously, and they have bred themselves in that shape now for how many hundreds of thousand years? A million perhaps, back to the time your people strayed down from the trees because the Zhaar had changed you into bipeds. Back to the time your people began to speak sooner than they would otherwise have done, because the Zhaar had changed your minds and throats. And as a consequence…”