Robert Sawyer - Foreigner

The sky was a bright blue and there was something yellow and huge blazing in it. A sun. But, by the very Egg of God, it was not the sun. If she hadn’t been floating, Novato would have staggered back on her tail.

The view in the central window changed, but the number in the upper left remained zero. A group of strange quadrupeds were in the middle of the picture. Startling beasts: they were covered with vertical black and white stripes. The view moved, as if whatever eye was capturing these images was scanning, looking for something else. At last it settled on a trio of bipeds. These were like the yellowish ones Novato had already seen, but had skin so dark brown as to be almost black. They also had black fiber on the tops of their heads, but these fibers seemed more coiled than straight. The three of them were wearing pieces of leather cloth around their waists. Obviously they killed animals, then—but how? These brown ones still lacked any sort of muzzle, and—my God!—one had its mouth open now, and Novato could clearly see the yellow-white teeth.

Flat, square teeth.

The teeth of a herbivore.

Novato’s mind reeled. Nothing made any sense. And yet, these creatures were obviously intelligent: in addition to the waist cloths, one of the three was wearing some kind of jewelry. The jeweled one was interesting. Its chest was completely different in construction than that of the other two; a pair of large growths hung from it. What could they possibly be for?

Novato shook her head, then glanced at the window to the left. Ah, at least the creature it was showing was reasonable. A reptilian biped, a bit like a runningbeast, with green and brown skin, two arms, two legs, and a long, drawn-out face. It was much less stocky than a Quintaglio, and its hands had only three fingers. The eyes were huge and silver, and its body was held horizontally, with a thin, stiff tail projecting directly to the rear, like the balancing-bar tail used by terrorclaws. Again, this was an intelligent creature, for in its hand was some sort of complex device. The creature seemed to stare directly at Novato for a moment, blinked its eyes, then turned and walked away, its neck weaving back and forth as it moved.

The view changed. Novato’s mind reeled again, but eventually images coalesced for her. She was seeing an underwater landscape, but seeing it clearly, without the blurring normally associated with opening one’s eyes while submerged. A herd of creatures was moving by on the bottom. Each had seven pairs of stilt-like legs and seven waving tentacles in a row down its back. The tentacles each ended in little pincers. Novato thought she must be hallucinating, the creatures looked so strange.

Her head spun, unable to sort out all the images. She fought waves of disorientation and confusion.

What was she seeing? What did it all mean?

Toroca stood on the Dasheter’ s rear diamond-shaped hull, leaning over the gunwale. It was late afternoon. Far astern he could see the strange triangular sails of the Other ships spread out in a line.

Behind them was the top of the Face of God, just a sliver of it sticking above the horizon now, a tiny dome of yellow and orange and brown, all but submerged beneath the waves. In front of it, though, the water was stained red, as if slick with blood, reflecting the light of the setting Face.

Toroca’s tail swished in sadness. How could it have gone so wrong? He’d sought knowledge, only knowledge, and instead had found death.

There hadn’t been a war amongst Quintaglios since the time of Dasan. Toroca had thought his race had outgrown such foolishness, had evolved in spirit and morality as well as in physical form.

But no. The Quintaglios were as bloodthirsty as they’d always been. Instinctive killers, killers to their very cores.

The Face of God continued to set, its apparent movement caused solely by the Dasheter’ s own motion through the water.

Toroca watched the Other ships, illuminated from the front by the setting sun behind him and from the back by the light reflected from the sliver of Face. It was some time before he realized what was happening, but soon there could be no mistake. Several of the ships on the left and right of the wall of pursuing vessels were turning. He could see them sideways now instead of bow-on. And soon, he saw their sterns. They were going back! They were heading for home!

Of course, thought Toroca. They worshipped the Face of God and did not want to travel beyond its purview. Perhaps no Other ship had ever sailed onto the back-side hemisphere before.

Two more ships were turning now.

Toroca glanced up at the lookout’s bucket atop the foremast. Somebody was up there, but his back was to Toroca, scanning the waters ahead of the Dasheter . Babnol was crossing the deck behind Toroca, though. He called out to her. She looked up, her strange nose horn casting shadows fore and aft in the light of the setting sun and the setting Face. “Please get Captain Keenir for me,” he shouted.

Babnol bowed concession and hurried across the joining piece to the Dasheter ’s other hull. Moments later, old Keenir came thundering toward Toroca, his giant stride carrying him quickly across the deck.

“What is it?” called the captain, his gravelly voice full of concern.

“The Others!” said Toroca. “They’re turning back!”

Keenir put a hand up to shield his eyes. “So they are,” he said, sounding disappointed.

“They must be afraid to sail out of sight of the Face,” said Toroca. He looked at the captain, hoping the oldster would catch the irony. When Afsan had taken his pilgrimage voyage aboard the Dasheter , Keenir had supposedly had a similar fear, for no Quintaglio ship had yet sailed beyond the Face in the other direction.

“Perhaps we should turn and give chase,” said Keenir.

“What?” said Toroca. “Good captain, they have weapons; they could sink us. Let them go.”

Keenir was quiet for a moment, then nodded. “Aye, I suppose you’re right.” The Face of God slipped below the horizon, although the sky was lit up with Godglow. But then the captain pointed. “Look!”

Toroca turned. A few of the Other ships had given up and gone back, but most of the attack force continued in hot pursuit.

“I guess their fear of sailing beyond the Face wasn’t that great,” said Keenir.

“Maybe,” said Toroca. “Or maybe, since they’re in the right, most of them believe their god won’t forsake them even if they sail beyond its view.”

The captain grunted. Night came swiftly.

The images in the nine windows continued to change every forty beats or so: red blobs, tailless bipeds, strange reptilians, stilt-legged creatures, other things Novato couldn’t begin to categorize.

And occasionally an oasis in all the madness: something familiar, Dybo’s ruling room.

Still, it was too much to absorb, too much to take in. Floating in midair in front of the bank of windows, Novato’s eyes glazed over, the windows becoming just nine squares of colored light flashing in front of her eyes, hypnotic, spellbinding, flashing, flashing…

She shook her head violently, trying to gain control of her faculties again. She decided to not look at the windows, to avert her gaze for a while, to concentrate on something— anything —else.

To the left of each window were three vertical strips of glowing characters that changed each time the view in the window changed. The first and second strips were gibberish in the ark-maker’s, script, but the third was a simple diagram. In almost all cases it consisted of a single large circle at the top with a series of smaller circles trailing off below it. In every set, one of the smaller circles was white instead of red. The design seemed vaguely familiar to Novato, and she finally realized what it meant when the lower right window displayed the inside of Dybo’s palace again. Beneath the big circle was a series of three small dots, then three big dots, and finally two more small dots. Rather than one of these being white, though, a tiny white point was glowing next to the second of the three big dots.