Eric Flint - Mother of Demons

It's a different dialect. But I don't think-a sigh of relief-that it's a separate language.

At first, the gukuy observing the scene showed no reaction but a mild mottling in their mantles. Green, Indira noted with relief. But then they spotted the humans; and their mantles turned, in an instant, scarlet and ochre.

Fear. Indecision. What frightening creatures we must appear to them. Nothing on this planet looks remotely like human beings.

The owoc in the valley seemed totally unconcerned about the humans (whom they had certainly spotted, at this distance). The beings were lumbering toward the interlopers, issuing hoots which Indira could generically recognize as happy greetings. And their mantles were now solid green, untouched by even a trace of any other color.

But the three gukuy in the upunu field suddenly broke and raced toward the "temple," whistling loudly. A moment later, four other gukuy emerged from the building. A rapid exchange of sounds and whistles.

Everything seemed to be happening at once. By now, the two groups of owoc had met and were beginning to intermingle. Formality, Indira noted, did not seem to be a prominent feature of owoc culture. But her attention, for the moment, was on the temple.

A moment later, as she had feared, the seven gukuy in the temple re-emerged and began hurrying toward them.

Bearing weapons. The same type which the raiders had carried-those stone-tipped whips and long-spiked morning stars. (Flails and forks, the gukuy called them, as she would learn later.) And as they neared, she saw that blue was beginning to ripple in their mantles. Blue was a color rarely seen in the mantles of owoc.

Rage.

She saw the other humans in her party grow stiff and tense. Suddenly, at Joseph's command, the youngsters They're not youngsters anymore, you damn fool! They're warriors, and if you don't think fast they're going to react like warriors.

– reversed their grip on the spears.

Indira sighed with relief. Until she remembered that the grip which holds a spear in the point-down position of peace is the same one used to hurl it. And each of the- warriors -was carrying three spears.

She had not paid much attention to the military exercises, but she knew enough to know that Joseph had trained his people to start an attack with a cast of spears.

"Joseph!"

The youth did not look at her; his eyes remained fixed on the approaching gukuy. But he gestured with his hand, in a manner which simultaneously conveyed acknowledgement and surety. Then, when the gukuy were no more than thirty meters away, he hooted loudly: we not good peace is break are

The gukuy suddenly stopped. The ochre in their mantles strengthened. Red fear remained, but the blue began to fade.

Joseph hooted again. we must owoc friends us be are

The owoc from both groups suddenly began hooting back and forth. The exchange was too rapid for Indira to follow, even if she had been able to understand the dialect of the new ones. But whatever they were saying, there was no mistaking the reaction of the gukuy. The blue disappeared entirely, as did the red. Ochre remained, but it grew slowly dimmer. And within minutes, faint traces of dappled green began to appear.

That's one of the great advantages chromatophoric beings have over we poor humans. Even if they can't speak another's language, they can still read their emotions. What must they make of us, I wonder?

Incongruously, she snickered.

A bunch of miserable monsters, whose leader is always implacable about everything and one of whom is always in heat.

She glanced at Jens, and had to suppress an outright laugh.

Not far from the truth, actually. It's amazing how the youngsters adapt to the owoc. Even though they know that human color means nothing, they can't help reacting unconsciously to Jens' white skin. I think every youngster in the colony has shared either Jens or Karin Schmidt's bed. Or both.

(She'd mentioned that to Julius, once. The biologist had laughed, and said: "Yeah, I know. On this planet, the myth is going to be that white people are hyper-sexual. Give it a few generations and I wouldn't be surprised to see pale skin make a genetic comeback. I doubt if the Nazis would be pleased, though, given the circumstances. Unless they decided the owoc were honorary Aryans.")

Eventually, expressing themselves in owoc hoots which Indira and Joseph were able to interpret, the gukuy invited the humans into the building which Indira thought to be a temple. Indira immediately accepted.

The minute she walked up the ramp, and saw the interior of the building (as she had suspected, it was open all the way through), all doubt vanished. There was no mistaking the meaning of the huge figurine which rested at the center of the temple.

It was not a carving, but a construct-a wicker-like framework of some kind, embellished and decorated with shells, precious stones, and carved-horn?

She was deeply impressed by the artistry of the piece. The style was in no sense naturalistic. It rather reminded her of the exaggerated style of ancient African carvings. Except for the intricacy of the detail, which had a vague resemblance to the ornate idols in Hindu temples.

But even more than the stylistic resonances, she was stunned by the essence of the figurine itself. It was the statue of a gukuy, in repose. Deep green, in color. She thought that the curl of the arms had meaning, as well.

But whatever the specific significance of any particular detail of the statue, the sense of the whole was unmistakable. Light years apart, and thousands of year later in time, an alien race had produced a being whose vision could not have been so different from one glimpsed on Earth.

Staring at the statue, she took a deep breath. Then, for the first time since entering the valley, felt the tension wash out of her completely.

Siddartha Gautama. The Buddha.

"The similarity's only general, of course," she explained to Julius after she returned. "Until I learn the gukuy language, I won't be sure. Owoc is such a difficult language in which to convey precise meaning. Still, from what I could glean, their faith absolutely resonates with quasi-Buddhist conceptions."

"And just how did the teachings of the Buddha find their way to Ishtar-interstellar transcendentalism?" demanded Julius. "Have you become a mystic yourself now?"

Indira smiled. "No, Julius. I'm still the hard-boiled rationalist you know and love. But convergence operates on more than a biological level, my dear. It's not surprising at all, actually. Most of the great religions on Earth arose within a relatively short time, you know-in cultures scattered all over the planet. Beginning around a half millenium before the birth of Christ. In China, you had Confucius and Lao-Tse. In India, Buddha and the founders of Jainism, and the transformation of the Vedic traditions into Hinduism. In Greece, the rise of philosophy. For that matter, it was during the same general period that your Hebrew ancestors were hammering out their own faith. The last great world religion, Islam, arose not much more than a millenium later. A short time, really, in terms of the whole sweep of human history."

Julius was frowning. "I don't see the point."

"The point, Julius, is that this gukuy religion tells me a great deal about the general state of current gukuy society. Societies, I should say. The Earth's great religions and philosophies all arose in response to the development of civilization. Animism and tribal pantheons are inadequate to explain a varied and complex world. Intelligent beings inevitably begin to grope for universal truths. And a universal morality."

"That sounds like good news."

Indira shrugged. "Yes and no. All of the great religions created a basic code of ethics, which were actually quite similar in their principles. Variations on the Golden Rule, essentially. That represented a gigantic stride forward in human culture, no matter how often those principles were later violated in practice. But the great religions also quickly became a powerful tool for ruling classes to expand and strengthen their domination. Constantine's conversion to Christianity was accompanied by the Church's allegiance to the temporal authority of the Roman Empire, to give just one example."