Poul Anderson - The Boat of a Million Years

Tu Shan’s countenance twisted. “Yukiko?” he croaked.

She flew to his arms. He held her close. What she gulped forth was, “Forgive me.”

“I think you should go,” Macandal said. “It seems to be something you’d understand best among us.”

“No, really,” Aliyat began, “you’ve always—”

Macandal smiled. “You’ve gotten too shy, honey. Think back. Way back, like to New York.”

Still Aliyat hesitated. She wasn’t simply unsure whether she could deal with the Ithagene in. what was clearly a critical situation. As a matter of fact, she had gotten more grasp of their language and ways—in some aspects, at least—than anybody else. (Had her earlier life made her quick to catch nuances?) But Tu Shan could ill spare her help, nursing the fields through this season of a drought year; and in spare moments, she was collating the mass of data and writing up the significant experiences that Wanderer and Svoboda sent back from their exploration of the northern woodlands. “I’d have to stay in touch with you anyway,” she said.

“Well, that’s wise,” the other woman replied, “but you’ll be on the spot and the only one really qualified to make decisions. I’ll support you. We all will.”

She was not the boss at Hestia, nobody was, yet it had tacitly come to pass that her word carried the most weight in the councils of the six. More lay behind that than finding the advice was sound. Wanderer had remarked once, “I think we, with our science and high technology, four and a third light-centuries from Earth, are discovering old truths again: spirit, mana, call it what you will. Maybe, even, God.”

“Besides,” Macandal continued, “I’ve got my hands full,” She always did, her own work, what she shared with Pa-tulcius, what belonged to the community; and at three years, Joseph was several handsful by himself. Her laugh rolled. “Also my belly.” Their second. Pregnancy was not disabling, bodies had hardened to Xenogaian weight, but you had better be careful. “Don’t worry, we’ll pitch in to see your man through; and maybe you won’t be gone long.” Soberly: “Take what time you need, though. This means a great deal to them. It might mean everything to us.”

Therefore Aliyat packed her gear and rations, and departed.

Coming out of her house in the morning, she stopped for a minute and looked. Not yet was the scene too familiar to see. The sky reached milky, an overcast riven in places to reveal the wan blue beyond. Nowhere beneath were the clouds that should have brought rain. Air hung still and hot, full of sulfjury smells. The stream that ran from the eastern hills through the settlement had become little more than a trickle; she barely heard it fall over the verge nearby and tumble to the river. Down in the estuary, banks and bars shone wider than erstwhile at low tide.

Regardless, Hestia abided. The three homes and several auxiliary buildings stood foursquare, -solidly timbered. Russet native turf between them had withered, but watering preserved the shade trees and the beds of roses, hollyhocks, violets along walls. A kilometer northward, robots were busy around the farmstead and in the fields; the meadow and its cows made a fantastic vividness of green and red. Farther off, the spaceboat reared above the aircraft hangar, into heaven, like a watchtower over the whole small realm. From this height Aliyat spied a brighter gleam on the eastern horizon, the Amethyst Sea.

We’ll survive, she knew. At worst, the synthesizers will have to feed us and our livestock till the drought breaks, and next year we’ll have to start over. Oh, I hope not. We’ve worked so hard—machines too few—and hoped so much. An enlarged base, surplus, the future, the children— All right, I have been selfish, not wanting to be bothered with any of my own, but isn’t Hestia glad that I’m free today?

Elsewhere Minoa reached as of old. South, across the river, forest crowns bore a thousand hues, ocher, brown, greenish bronze, dulled by dryness. The same growth bordered the cleared land on the north; then, westerly on this side, hills climbed. Above their ridges lifted a white blur, Mount Pytheas wrapped in its mists.

Human names. Throat and tongue could form the language of the dwellers after a fashion, understandably if they paid close attention, but soon grew hoarse. The concepts behind that speech were more difficult.

Aliyat turned to kiss Tu Shan goodbye. His body was hard, his arms strong. Already at this hour he smelled of sweat, soil, maleness. “Be careful,” he said anxiously.

“You be,” she retorted. Xenogaia surely harbored more surprises and treacheries than had struck thus far. He’d been injured oftenest. He was a darling, but drove himself overly hard.

He shook his head. “I fear for you. From what I have heard, this is a sacred matter. Can we tell how they will act?”

“They’re not stupid. They won’t expect me to know their mysteries. Remember, they asked if somebody would come and—“ And what? It wasn’t clear. Help, counsel, judge? “They haven’t lost their awe of us.”

Had they not? What did a creature not of Earth, no kin whatsoever, feel? The natives had certainly been hospitable. They readily gave this piece of ground, had indeed offered a site closer to their city; but the humans feared possible ecological problems. There had been abundant exchange of objects as wejl as ideas, useful as well as interesting or beautiful. But did this prove more than that the Ithagene— another Greek word—had their share of common sense and, one supposed, curiosity?

“I’ve got to go. Keep well.” Aliyat walked off, as fast as was safe under a backpack. She’d developed muscles like a judo black belter’s, which gave a terrifically sexy figure and gait, but bones remained all too breakable.

Someday we’ll leave. Phaeacia waits, promising us to be like Earth. Does she lie? How much will we miss this world of toils and triumphs?

Four Ithagene waited at the head of the path. They wore mesh mail and their hook-halberds gleamed sharp. They were an honor guard; or so she thought of them. Deferential, they divided to precede and follow her down the switchbacks across the fjord wall to the river. At the floating dock, the envoy was already in the vessel that brought them. Long, gracefully curved at prow and stern, it little resembled the two human-made boats tied nearby. No more did it have rowers, though, and the yards were bare of sails. A motor, such as the fabricator robots had lately, accumulated the resources to make, was an imperial gift. Supplies of fuel renewed it ongoingly.

The humans often wondered what they were doing to this civilization, for good or ill—ultimately, to this world.

Aliyat recognized S’saa. That was as closely as she could render the name. She did her best with a phrase that they guessed, in Hestia, was half formal greeting, half prayer. Lo responded in kind. (“Lo, le, la.” What else could you say when sexes were three, none corresponding quite to male or female or neuter, and the language lacked genders?) She and her escort boarded, a crew member cast off, another took the rudder, the motor purred, they bore upstream.

“May you now tell me what you want?” Aliyat asked.

“The matter is too grave for uttering elsewhere than in the Halidom,” S’saa answered. “We shall sing of it.”

The notes keened forth to set an emotional tone, prepare both body and mind. Aliyat heard distress, anger, fear, bewilderment, resolution. Surely much escaped her, but in the past year or two she had finally begun to comprehend, yes, feel such music, as she had failed to do with many kinds on Earth. Wanderer and Macandal were experimenting with adaptations of it, composing songs of quiet, eerie power.