G. Nordley: Final Review

Yohin scowled and shrugged.

“By the way, where are you headed?” Mary added.

“Hot Springs Island. Landfall tonight, if we don’t have any other delays.” Yohin replied, ignoring the dart. The volcanic island was about midway from Trimus City to their destination.

Drin’s ear coinset tone sounded. The Kleth wanted to speak to him.

“Hot Springs Island was last place Bi Tan seen,” Do Tor told him. “Writer’s colony there.”

Interesting. Bi Tan was connected with Richard Moon, Gonikli, Gorman Stendt, Yohin and his primitivist crew. But knowing where a Kleth had been seen two eights of days ago was about as helpful as knowing where a cloud had been. Kleth were naturally prone to flit wherever they pleased, and eight to the eighth years ago they had developed aircraft to do it farther and faster. Bi Tan—or her body—could be anywhere on the planet or in nearby space. Gonikli would be much easier to find.

“Good to see you again, Mr. Bretz a Landend,” Drin said. “We’ll be on our way now.” Drin sounded without further ceremony and resumed his course northward.

He was soon joined by Mary’s submarine. “What’s bothering you?” she asked.

“Memories,” Drin answered. “Of several kinds. From recently, and ... from my youth. I’d rather put you in their wake until I understand them better myself.”

Mary looked at him and put her hand on the inside of her canopy. Drin slowed and sent his tongue to her, grasping a cleat with the hand on the right branch while pressing the hand on the left against the canopy opposite her. He felt her warmth through that. Sometimes, words were not needed.

The culture of Trimus should be looked on as a three-legged stool, not a mystical fusion. The three intelligent species maintain their separate identities under and supporting the overall planetary unity, as codified in the Compact and Charter of the Planet Trimus.

“Drin, it’s—it’s awesome.”

The Ib family complex was built on a great beach of black gravel now well above the tide line. They were approaching from the north, and the banded half-disk of Ember, lit gold by distant Aurum, rose huge over the snow-capped volcanic cones behind the great Do’utian domes—as if it was just another, greater dome. Mary rode on Drin’s neck, holding on to the thin, but virtually indestructible decorative sash that Drin wore to show his office. On this beach, for politeness’ sake, everyone’s status should be clear.

Drin nodded. By ancient Do’utian standards, the Ib family estate buildings were respectable, though hardly awe inspiring. But, excepting some of the government buildings at Trimus City, they were among the largest structures on the planet. Drin blew a little steam in an involuntary spasm of humor—he remembered that there was a tacit agreement among the Do’utians that no measurements be taken, lest it lead to beach-status arguments. “Their branch of the Ib have lived here since the founding. The small white stone dome in the center is older than anything still standing in Trimus city.”

“Small? It has to be twenty charter units across! Drin, the Ib in your name—is it?”

“My great-grandfather was a second son. If he had been first, and my father had been first in the subsequent line, I would be master of that. But,” Drin paused for a short laugh, not entirely free of wistfulness, “there are at least a hundred Do’utians on this planet with a closer claim. The flaking domes are fairly recent; they replaced older domes that fell in a quake eight-cubed, three eight-squared, seven-eights and two years ago. The more modem hexagonal structures house employees and a small replicator factory.”

“How many live here?”

Drin had to think. “Doglaska’ib is the long one, and has been for nearly seven centuries. He has a harem of five including Gonikli’ibida, though this is attended more by his son and heir, the master Borragil’ib. Two bachelor brothers maintained offices there, but they live in Trimus City for the most part. There is a child in residence and Borragil’ib’s widowed sister. Uh—” it was uncomfortable for Drin to admit the next—“a cousin, a returned primitivist, and two of his beach harem are staying there too, temporarily. So there may be a dozen in residence, but our ways are such that two or three are all we’re likely to find here. This complex will house three-eights comfortably, and there have been larger gatherings. Their cybernetic system maintains the place between visits.”

“They have an artificial intelligence in this place?” Mary sounded horrified, Drin thought, at what she clearly thought was a violation of values and possibly the Compact.

“We aren’t in Trimus City anymore, Mary. The domination of one mind by another is not abhorrent in Do’utian culture, and this is perhaps the most Do’utian place of Trimus. The computer is a tool, technically subsentient.”

“First Yohin, then this. I’m getting a lesson in the gray areas of slavery law today,” Mary remarked. “An uncomfortable lesson.”

“A stool without legs,” Drin remarked, referring to Go Zom’s famous metaphor, “would be uninteresting.”

“You guys don’t use stools,” Mary countered, and laughed to take the edge off.

It was, Drin realized, a purely Trimusian thought. If the Ib beach hold represented the foot of the stool, then he and Mary were where the legs joined the stool.

For all its timeless magnificence, the complex wallowed in technology to a breathtaking extent—a Do’utian settler from eight macroyears ago would not have felt out of place. They passed through a magnetic suspension barrier on their way in and Drin shivered as the field-stabilized liquid barrier scraped anything loose on his body from him as he pushed through it into the delicately perfumed water of the complex. He had to pull Mary’s submarine through the barrier; it propelled itself by pushing water with electromagnetic fields, and the barrier interfered with that process.

The ramp from the sea door was covered by a transport carpet composed of microcilia that pushed him up and into the entrance chamber without his having to move a muscle. Mary’s eyes went wide when she found that the water of the sea door had seemed to solidify to let her walk from the submarine to the solid surface with wavelets lapping on either side of her. A smart nanite jell, Drin assumed.

Drin had grown up with all of this, but it hit him with waves of nostalgia whenever he returned from the open sea, or even the comparatively ascetic environment of Trimus City.

No one had come to greet them, but this was not unusual in Do’utian society.

“Smooth currents to Dag Doglaska’ib,” Drin greeted his uncle and host, knowing the system would relay the greeting. “We’ve come to talk to Gonikli’ibida; Monitor duty, I’m afraid. There’s been a questionable death.”

“Smooth currents, Commander Drinnil’ib,” a disembodied Do’utian voice said, as if the speaker were standing near Drin. “Ibgorni speaking for the house. Doglaska’ib receives your message, and bids welcome.”

It was as if the long one himself were speaking, Drin felt. Ibgorni’s mind had grown in Drin’s absence—perhaps more so than even he could take comfortably.

“Gonikli’ibida is in residence,” it continued, “but outside now. We offer you the yellow sector in the south dome. Does the Lieutenant wish to stay with you or have her own quarters?”

Mary looked at Drin, and he had a quick decision. Which would cause more gossip? To send Mary away halfway across the huge complex when everyone knew that they lived together in the field would look like he was being overly sensitive. Drin opened his beak just enough for Mary to see him give the OK sign.