Robert Sawyer: Foreigner

Just dust, that’s all it was. Ancient dust.

She knelt down and upended the box onto Garios’s floor plan, hoping there would be something inside all the dust. But the orange grains just sifted out; it seemed to be a uniformly fine grade. The dust made a good-sized mountain in the center of the plan. Individual grains spilled toward the sheet’s edge.

Disappointed, Novato turned her attention to the two boxes still embedded in the wall. The second one had apparently been damaged in the ark’s crash and its contents had long since escaped through a crack in the container’s bottom. The third box was rusted or fused to its holder. They tried again and again for an extended period, but no amount of tugging by either her or Garios could dislodge it.

Novato sighed and turned around.

What the—?

The mound of orange dust was no longer centered on the floor plan. In fact, the center of the plan was completely clear and the mound was now half on and half off the sheet of leather.

It must be flowing downhill, thought Novato.

And then she realized that wasn’t right at all.

The dust, the ancient orange dust, was flowing, all right, but it was flowing uphill, heading toward the corridor that led to the double-doored room.

“They weren’t just dumb animals, were they?” said Captain Keenir of the Dasheter, his tail swishing back and forth across the beach. “They were people.”

Toroca pointed at the body of the Other, lying in a pool of blood. “That one was wearing copper jewelry,” he said.

“And the one we, ah, encountered was also sporting jewelry,” said Babnol, who had removed her sash and was using it to wipe her face clean of blood.

“The braincases were bigger than those of any animal,” Toroca said. “So, yes, they were people, of a kind. Thinking beings.”

“And we’ve killed two of them,” said Babnol, shaking her head. “I—I don’t know why I reacted the way I did. It was as though the sight of the—the thing was enough to trigger dagamant. I felt as if my territory had been invaded. My claws popped out, and then everything became a blur. Next thing I knew, Spalton and I were standing over the dead body.” She paused. “What was left of the body, that is.”

“You didn’t feel the same thing?” Keenir said to Toroca, almost imploringly, as if seeking absolution.

Toroca’s tail swished. “No. The appearance of the Other was startling, but it didn’t trigger any rage in me.”

“You’re unusual, of course,” said Babnol matter-of-factly. “You’re free of the territorial instinct.”

“True.”

“Something about these Others sets off that instinct,” said Babnol. “The sight of them, or maybe their pheromones. Something.”

“It wasn’t pheromones,” said Keenir. “The one Toroca and I saw was downwind of us.” He looked out over the waters. “The sun is setting. We should get back to the Dasheter.”

“What about the bodies?” said Toroca.

“What do you mean?” asked Babnol.

“I mean, what do we do with them? Do we just leave them on the beach?”

“What else?” said Keenir, aghast. “You’re not suggesting we take them back to the ship as food?”

Toroca wrinkled his muzzle in disgust. “No, of course not. But we should do something with them.” He leaned back on his tail. “If we’re going to have any further contact with the natives here,we’ve got two choices. Either we try to explain to them what happened—offer our apologies and let them do with the bodies whatever they normally do. Or we hide the bodies and hope that suspicion for the disappearance of these two individuals never falls on us.”

Babnol looked at Toroca. She was an unusual Quintaglio herself, having retained her birthing horn into adulthood. The fluted cone cast a shadow across her muzzle. “I suggest we simply hightail it back to the Dasheter and get as far away from these islands as possible. They’re evil, Toroca.”

Toroca looked surprised. “Evil? That’s the same word the captain used before you joined us. In any event, we’ve got to explore these islands; that’s the whole point of the Geological Survey. But as to whether we, ah, admit involvement with these deaths…”

“Don’t do it,” said Keenir. “How could we explain what we did? We can’t even fathom it ourselves. No, we’ll take the bodies back out in the shore boats, tie rocks to their ankles, and dump them overboard when we’re far from shore.”

Babnol’s voice was distressed, and her tail moved in agitated ways. “I don’t feel right about doing that.”

“Nor do I,” agreed the captain. “But since we don’t know anything about these people, it’s best we not make our initial presentation of ourselves to them as… as…”

“Murderers,” said Toroca.

Keenir sighed. “Yes.”

Toroca’s turn to sound uncomfortable. “If we are going to take the corpses, please don’t dump them overboard. I’d like to, ah, study them.”

“Very well,” said Keenir. A pause, and then, his voice heavy: “Let’s fetch them.”

And they set out to do just that. The one that Keenir had killed was still nearby. Wingfingers were picking at the gaping wounds, but they took flight as soon as the Quintaglios approached. Spalton and the captain carried the corpse to the shore boat and began paddling back to the Dasheter. Toroca and Babnol covered the bloodstained ground with clean sand, then headed down the beach. They came to where the vegetation jutted into the water and made their way through the growth until they arrived at where Babnol and Spalton had encountered their Other.

“Uh-oh,” said Babnol, her head swiveling left and right.

The second body was gone.

Word of the talking cure is spreading, apparently. I’ve received an imperial summons asking me to take on a new patient. I’d hoped that the subject was going to be Emperor Dy-Dybo himself. I thought he might be having emotional difficulties, stemming from the challenge to his leadership two kilodays ago. True, he’d acquitted himself well in the battle with the blackdeath, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were residual problems. After all, he did see six apprentice governors die in front of his eyes, and, as if that weren’t bad enough, he’d had to chew his own arms off.

But, no, my new patient isn’t quite that highly placed in the government. Still, Sal-Afsan should be an interesting case nonetheless. I’ve been reviewing what is generally known about him. Afsan is middle-aged, having hatched some thirty-four kilodays ago in Pack Carno, part of Arj’toolar province. Extremely gifted intellectually, he was summoned to Capital City at the age of thirteen to be the latest and, as it turned out, the last in a series of apprentices to Tak-Saleed, the master court astrologer.

Afsan has certainly lived an interesting life. He was aboard the sailing ship Dasheter when it made the first-ever circumnavigation of our world. He is credited with figuring out the true nature of the Face of God, and with discovering that our world is doomed to break up into a ring of rubble. Originally his idea was denounced as heresy, and the late Det-Yenalb, Master of the Faith back then, used a ceremonial dagger to poke out Afsan’s eyes in punishment. But an underground of Lubalite hunters declared that Afsan was ‘The One,’ the great male hunter that Lubal had prophesied as she lay dying. Afsan’s hunts—before he was blinded, of course—were indeed spectacular: he killed the largest thunderbeast ever seen, defeated a great water serpent, and even brought down a fangjaw.

Because of this, all eight of Afsan’s children by Wab-Novato were allowed to live. The bloodpriests, an order closely allied with the Lubalites, refused to devour any of The One’s egglings.