Foreigner qa-3 Read online

  *19*

  Toroca was the discoverer of evolution. As the current conflict with the Others bloodily demonstrated, the Quintaglios, through the traditional culling process, had not been selecting for the most desirable traits. In trying to devise a new selection criterion, Toroca had spent considerable time in creches, learning about the process of hatching and the early days of childhood.

  He hadn’t expected that information to have any practical applications for him personally. But now the little Other eggling was making loud peeping sounds. It was hungry.

  Creche workers could regurgitate at will, feeding hatchlings directly from their mouths. Toroca had no idea how to voluntarily bring food back up; it was said a fist inserted in the back of the throat could trigger such a reaction, but the accompanying convulsion might cause the jaws to snap shut, severing one’s arm just below the elbow. Instead, Toroca took little cubes of dried hornface meat in his mouth and, glad that no one was around to see the disgusting sight, chewed the meat by popping it from side to side with his tongue as he slid his jaws forward and back. When the meat was well worked over, he opened his mouth wide and, using his fingers to help dislodge it, collected the meat in a bowl. He poured some water onto it and mixed it together until he had a soft mass. He then put the bowl on the floor near the peeping eggling. The baby was stumbling about.

  Nothing happened. Toroca had expected the eggling to smell the concoction and make his way over to it. Perhaps it was the gastric odor in regurgitated food that attracted infant Quintaglios; this meat had no such pungent odor. Toroca crouched on the floor and used his left hand to scoop up some of the meal he’d made and presented it directly to the eggling. He used his other hand to gently prod the baby toward the food. Once its little yellow muzzle was up against the stuff in Toroca’s hand, the baby apparently realized what it was and began to use its tongue to maneuver bits of it into its mouth. Toroca crouched contentedly as the hatchling ate, gently stroking the baby’s back with his free hand.

  Afsan looked haggard. His tail seemed stiff and dead, one of the claws on his left hand was sticking out as if he’d lost conscious control of it, his head was tipped slightly forward, and his muzzle hung half-open as though the effort of keeping his teeth covered, something protocol required, was too much for him. The little membranes at the corners of his mouth were that ashen color one gets when feverish. It was clear that he was exhausted.

  Mokleb dipped a fingerclaw into the pot of ink she’d brought with her and began the transcript of the day’s session. Writing her words down as they were spoken, she said: "We’ve come close to the territory of this issue before, but never actually crossed the boundaries. Some call you Sal-Afsan, some just Afsan, and some call you by a third name: The One."

  Afsan sighed. "You really have a thing about names, don’t you?"

  "Do I?" Mokleb’s inner eyelids blinked. "Well, I guess I do, at that. They are an important part of our identity, Afsan. And, as I said, some call you by a special name: The One."

  "And some call me fat-head, among other things."

  Mokleb refrained from clicking her teeth. "I’m curious about the effect it has on you to be called The One. It’s a reference to the prophecy made by the ancient hunter Lubal, isn’t it? When she was dying after being gored by a hornface, she said" — Mokleb topped transcribing her own words long enough to find the quote she had written down — "‘A hunter will come greater than myself, and this hunter will be a male — yes, a male — and he shall lead you on the greatest hunt of all.’"

  "Yes, that was the prophecy," said Afsan. A pause. "I don’t believe in prophecy."

  "Many take your proposed journey to the stars to be the great hunt Lubal spoke of."

  Afsan waved a hand dismissively. "Metaphor again. You can make anything mean anything else."

  Mokleb read from her notes once more. "And yet Lubal also said, ’One will come among you to herald the end; heed him, for those who do not are doomed.’ Isn’t that your story in miniature? You did herald the end of the world, and had we not listened to you and begun work toward the exodus, we would indeed have been doomed."

  Afsan, prone on his boulder, made a noncommittal grunt.

  "And," continued Mokleb, "Lubal said, ’The One will defeat demons of the land and of the water; blood from his kills will soak the soil and stain the River.’ You did kill the giant thunderbeast and you also slew the water serpent, ah," — checking notes once more — "Kal-ta-goot."

  "I’d forgotten that Lubal had said that," said Afsan. "It’s been an awfully long time since I’ve been able to read the Book of Lubal, after all, and…"

  "And?"

  "And, well, it’s not the sort of thing my apprentice would expect me to ask her to read to me."

  Mokleb inventoried her possible responses, chose a click of the teeth. "No, I suppose that’s true."

  "In any event, the thunderbeast wasn’t a demon. And Kal-ta-goot … well, chasing it was what allowed the Dasheter to complete the first circumnavigation of the globe. If anything, Kal-ta-goot was a savior."

  "Var-Keenir would not agree."

  "As much as I like and admire the old sailor, Keenir and I often disagree."

  Mokleb was silent.

  "Anyway, Mokleb, this is just another case of you forcing the words to mean something they don’t really say. I killed no demons."

  "‘Demons,’" repeated Mokleb thoughtfully. "Strictly speaking, demons are defined as those who can lie in the light of day."

  "Exactly. And I’ve never killed anyone who could do that. I’ve never even known anyone who could…"

  "Yes?"

  "Nothing."

  "Once again, you are hiding your thoughts, Afsan. I must know what you are thinking if I’m to help you."

  "Well, it’s just that Det-Yenalb, the priest who put out my eyes — I’d never thought about it this way before, but he once hinted to me that he could lie in the light of day. He implied that it went with being a successful priest. I never knew whether he was serious about it, or was just trying to frighten me, but…"

  "Yes?"

  "He was killed in 7110, during the skirmish between the palace loyal and the Lubalites. I didn’t kill him myself, but, well, if he could lie without his muzzle turning blue, then I suppose he was demon and, in a way, he was killed in my name."

  "And in any event," said Mokleb, looking down at her notes, "the word Lubal used was ’defeat,’ not ’kill.’ You personally did indeed defeat Det-Yenalb, for society now pursues your goal of spaceflight instead of following Yenalb’s teachings." She paused. "Besides, what about all your great hunts?"

  "All of them? There were only three of any significance before I lost my sight."

  "But such hunts!" said Mokleb. "The giant thunderbeast. Kal-ta-goot. And a fangjaw!"

  Afsan made a contemptuous motion with his hand. "You don’t understand. You’re just like the rest of them. No one seems to understand." He turned his head so that his blind eyes faced her. "I have never hunted. Not really. Not like a true hunter. Mokleb, the time I really needed to hunt in order to save myself, I failed miserably. As a child, I was lost in a forest. I couldn’t catch a single thing to eat. I was reduced to trying to eat plants. Plants!" He snorted. "Me, a hunter? I’m nothing of the kind."

  "But your kills…?"

  "Those weren’t examples of hunting prowess. I honestly believe I have little of that. Don’t you see? They were intances in which I solved problems. That’s all I’ve ever done. That’s the only thing I’m good at." He paused. "Consider the thunderbeast hunt — my first ritual hunt. The other members of the pack were taking bites out of the thing’s legs and sides." He shook his head, remembering. "That’s how you kill a small animal, not a living mountain. No, it was obvious to me that the thunderbeast’s vulnerable spot was the same as yours or mine — the underside of the throat. So I shimmied up the thing’s neck and bit it there. Anyone could have done that; I just happened to be the first to think of it."

  "And
Kal-ta-goot?"

  "A great hunt? Please. Even Det-Bleen, the Dasheter’s blow-hard priest, had reservations about that one. He wouldn’t consecrate the meal at first. Mokleb, I used tools for that kill. I wasn’t interested in ritual hunting at all. I realized that the animal had to breathe, just as we do, so I wrapped the anchor chain around its neck, constricting its flow of air. Again, that had nothing to do with athletic skill or hunting prowess or stealthful tracking. It was the application of the tools at hand to a specific problem."

  "Ah, but what about the fangjaw? That animal is rarely killed by any hunter, yet you felled one on your first attempt."

  Afsan spread his arms. "That’s the most obvious example of all. Pahs-Drawo and I stalked the fangjaw on the backs of runningbeasts. It was the runners that gave us the edge, not any skill of our own. And when it came time to actually attack, Drawo and I leapt off the runningbeasts, aiming for the fangjaw’s back. Drawo missed, landing in the dirt. I succeeded. Don’t you see? That kill wasn’t a result of hunting skill. Rather it was because I was able to calculate the trajectory properly to leap from one moving body onto another. Mathematics, that’s all that was. Mathematics and problem-solving. The same as my other hunts."

  "But other Quintaglios would have failed in your place. Isn’t it the results that matter?"

  "Oh, possibly. But the real point is simply that I kept my head during those hunts, that I was thinking, always thinking, while the others were letting their instincts guide them. Rationality is the key. No matter what’s going on around you, you have to keep your logic at the fore."

  "That’s something our people aren’t very good at, I guess," said Mokleb.

  "No," said Afsan, his voice heavy. "No, they’re not."

  "Still," said Mokleb after a moment, "prophecy is a metaphorical game. It does sound to me as though you’ve fulfilled most of the requirements of being The One."

  "Nonsense," said Afsan, annoyed. "Words mean what they mean. ’The One will defeat demons of the land and of the water,’ Lubal said. Maybe, just maybe, the death of Det-Yenalb could be construed as having defeated a demon of the land. But demons of the water? No such things exist, and, even if they did, I’m hardly likely to ever come into contact with them, let alone be the one who defeats them."

  Novato’s lifeboat continued its long ascent up the tower.

  She’d been traveling for almost five days now. That meant she was some six thousand kilopaces above the surface. By coincidence, six thousand kilopaces was the radius of her world; she was as far away from the surface of Land now as she would have been if she’d burrowed all the way to the center of her moon.

  The gravity continued to diminish. Things fell in leisurely slowness, as though settling gently through thick liquid. If Novato tucked her legs under her body, it was several beats before her knees gently touched the transparent floor. She guessed that the apparent gravity was only one-sixth of what it had been on the ground.

  Novato thought about the reduction in gravity. There were three forces involved: two pulling her down and one trying to push her up. The moon’s gravity and the gravity from the Face behind it were both drawing her down. But the tower itself was rigid, swinging through a vast arc once per day. It was as if she were a weight at the end of a six-thousand-kilopace rope being swung in a circle. The centrifugal force would be flinging her upward. Although the gravity from the Face and the moon would have lessened somewhat because of her travel away from them, she would have weighed substantially more if it hadn’t been for the centrifugal force.

  The lightness was wonderful, but Novato was anxious nonetheless.

  Five days.

  Five days locked in here.

  She needed to get outside, to run, to hunt! She couldn’t stand the thought of another meal of dried meat and salted fish. Yet she was still less than halfway to the tower’s summit.

  Clear walls pressed down on her, invisible yet claustrophobic.

  Five days.

  Novato sighed.

  Still, in that time she’d seen a lot of wonderful sights. While looking down, she’d seen a streak through the night sky, over the vast body of water. She realized it must have been a large meteor, seen from above. And, with the aid of the far-seer, she was able to make out the crimson points of erupting volcanoes in Edz’toolar — something Toroca had said was long overdue. She even saw an eclipse from in the middle, as another moon, the Big One, passed directly overhead at noon, its circular black shadow moving rapidly across Land.

  She looked down again.

  Her blood ran cold.

  The tower, this marvelous tower to the stars, now appeared to be bowing out as if it were about to fold over and break in half. She’d thought at first that it was an optical illusion: the curving horizon line made it difficult to tell by sight if the tower was truly straight, but as the bowing became more pronounced, there could be no mistake.

  She’d known what her daughter Karshirl had said: the tower was unstable. There was no way for something so tall and so narrow to stand without buckling, and yet she’d been fool enough to think that whatever magic had held it against its own weight so far would continue to keep it erect for the duration of her voyage.

  Her first thought was that she was going to die, plummeting back to the ground at a dizzying speed. Her second thought was that hundreds of people would die when giant pieces of the tower fell out of the sky.

  She felt herself slowly being pushed up toward the ceiling. She saw now that the tower was bowing the other way farther down, as if it were a great blue snake, undulating its way to the stars. After a time, she began drifting toward the floor again.

  And then Novato realized what was happening.

  Erupting volcanoes in Edz’toolar, the province next to Fra’toolar, where the tower was anchored.

  Landquake.

  What she was seeing was the rippling of the landquake being transferred up the structure of the tower. The first wave had yet to reach her. She could see another huge wave rolling up behind it, the tower bowing first to the east then to the west like a string plucked by a giant’s hand. In addition, the tower was moving up and down in longitudinal compression waves.

  But something else was happening. White gas was shooting out of the copper cones that projected from every fifth strut up the tower’s length. She’d seen little puffs shoot out from time to time during her ascent, but these were massive exhalations, geysers against the night.

  Novato saw a dent appear in the crest of the wave that was hurtling toward her, saw the tower material bow inward, moving in the opposite direction of the gas plume, saw the one giant wave become two smaller ones, with lesser crests and shorter lengths. And then it happened again, slowly, majestically, the waves splitting once more into new waves half as long and half as tall. When the disturbance did reach her, the lifeboat simply rose and fell gently, like a sailing ship rolling on a swell.

  The waves continued to dampen out. Soon, the jets of white fog coming from the copper cones became smaller and less frequent.

  And it hit her, all at once: how the tower had remained standing, and what those occasional puffs of gas she’d seen venting from ihe cones had meant.

  When the tower began leaning to the left, compressed gas nudged it to the right. When it began to topple to the right, a jet of air pushed it to the left. Along its whole length, the tower was constantly adjusting its orientation. Karshirl had been correct: no normal structure as long and thin as this one could stand. Like the mythical Tower of Howlee, it would buckle, regardless of the strength of the building material. But that had assumed that the tower was passive — and this tower was not. It was — the thought was incredible — it was alive, in a very real sense, constantly detecting shifts in its attitude and compensating for them with jets of air. Even the giant shifts caused by a landquake rippling up its length were dampened by this process.

  Whoever had built the ancient blue ark had been incredibly advanced. They had plied the distance between stars, som
ething Novato was only beginning to comprehend the difficulty of doing. They had created the strange and wonderful dust that had built this massive tower, an object longer than the world was wide. Nor was it any ordinary object; it was smart, reacting to changes in conditions.

  And yet, whoever the ark-makers were, they, too, had failed. One of their arks had crashed, the crew killed, its cargo of lifeforms never released. If something could defeat the ark-makers, what chance did Quintaglios have against the fate that awaited them?

  Novato hugged her arms to her body and tucked her tail between her legs. She settled slowly to the floor, afraid.

  *20*

  The Dasheter continued to race back toward Land, the armada of Other ships in hot pursuit. The Face of God was already half submerged below the waves. Right now, the sun was touching one horizon, and the Face, completely full, was sitting on the other. Toroca, standing on deck, cast a long shadow away from the sun, but the shadow itself was partially filled in by the soft ocher light reflecting from the Face.

  Captain Keenir approached Toroca from up ahead. Even though he knew Toroca was free of territorial feeling, Keenir couldn’t overcome the ingrained protocols: whenever possible, approach from the front rather than behind.

  "Beautiful sunset," said Keenir, stopping ten paces shy of the younger Quintaglio.

  Toroca nodded. "That it is."

  Keenir leaned against the gunwale. "You know," said the captain, his gravelly voice carrying an unusual tone of reflection, "I’ve been lucky. I’m eighty-three, a lot older than I have any right to be. I’ve probably seen more sunsets from aboard a ship than any other Quintaglio alive." He gestured at the thin line of cloud, stained dark purple against the purplish-red sky, and at the swollen egg of the sun. "Even so, I never get tired of looking at them."

  They watched the sun slip below the waves. Almost at once, the sky began to darken. Toroca turned to face Keenir. "Did you want to see me about something?"

  "Yes," said Keenir, the standard gruffness returning to his voice. "The Other infant."