David Brin - Earth

Too chummy. Sepak didn’t want any part of it. He especially took to avoiding the caverns during meal times, when he’d have to peer over a high gallery and smell civilized cooking. He, meanwhile, had to make do with what his grandfather had taught him to take from the forest itself.

By the bank of a trickling stream, Sepak dabbed streaks of soft clay across his brows, renewing the camouflage that kept him invisible to the soldiers… so far… and just so long as he didn’t try to cross those unsleeping beams at the perimeter. He chewed slowly on the last bits of a juvenile tree python he’d caught yesterday. Or the last bits he intended to eat. Grandfather had shown him how to prepare the entrails using some obscure herbs. But he’d been too nauseated to pay much attention that time. Reverence for your heritage was fine. Still, some “delicacies” pushed the limits.

The forest hadn’t been hunted this way for several generations. Perhaps that explained his luck so far. Or maybe it was because Sepak had left a cluster of bright feathers and butterfly wings at the foot of a tall tree, as sacrifice to a spirit whose name he’d forgotten, but who his grandfather had said was strong and benevolent.

I’m doin’ all right , he thought. But bloody ocker hell I wish I could take a bath!

Sepak caught his reflection in the shallow water. He was a sight, all right. Kinky hair greased back with marsupial fat. Dark skin streaked with pale, muddy tans and dabs of leaf sap. Only when he grinned was there any semblance to a twenty-first-century man, whose teeth suddenly seemed too white, too well ordered and perfect.

All around he sensed life slither and crawl, from tiny beetles scrabbling through the forest detritus all the way to the high canopy, where he glimpsed quick patches of fur, the glint of scales, the flash of eyes. Branches rustled. Things slowly stalked other things. You had to be patient to see any of it though. It wasn’t a skill you learned in school.

For the most part, the main thing you noticed was the quiet.

Suddenly, the calm was interrupted by a mob of foraging birds, which spilled into the tiny clearing in a storm of feathers. They swept in from the right, a chirping, rowdy chaos of colors and types. After that instant of startlement, Sepak kept perfectly still. He’d read about this phenomenon before, but never seen it until now.

Small, blue-feathered birds dove straight into the humus, flinging leaves and twigs as they chased fleeing insects. Above these, a larger, white- and yellow-plumed species hovered, diving to snatch anything stirred into sight by the bold blue ones. Other varieties swarmed the trunks and looping tree roots. It was amazing to witness how the species cooperated, like members of a disciplined jungle cleanup squad.

Then Sepak noticed some of them squabbling, fighting over this or that squirming morsel, and revised his first impression. The white-and-yellow birds were opportunistic , he now saw, taking advantage of the smaller ones’ industriousness. He watched a black-tailed root hopper swipe a tidbit already wriggling between the jaws of an irate bird in bright orange plumes. Other breeds did the same, warily keeping an eye out for each other while they worked over the trees’ lower bark, gobbling parasites and protein-rich bugs before any competitor could get at them.

This wasn’t teamwork, then. It was a balance of threat and bluster and force. Each scrounger fought to keep whatever it found while taking advantage of the others.

Funny. Why do they keep together, then?

It seemed to Sepak the white-and-yellows could have harassed the smaller birds more than they did. They missed opportunities because they were distracted, spending half their time scanning the forest canopy overhead.

He found out why. All at once, several yellows squawked in alarm, triggering a flurry of flapping wings. Faster than an eye-blink, all the birds vanished… taking cover a bare instant before a large hawk flashed through the clearing, talons empty, screeching in frustration.

The yellows’ warning saved everybody, not just themselves.

In moments the raptor was gone, and the multispecies mob was back again, resuming its weird, bickering parody of cooperation.

Each plays a role , he realized. All benefit from one type’s guarding skill. All profit from another’s talent for pecking …

Clearly none of them particularly liked each other. There was tension. And that very tension helped make it all work. It united the entity that was the hunting swarm as it moved out of sight through the towering trees.

“Huh,” Sepak thought, marveling how much one could learn by just sitting still and observing. It wasn’t a skill one learned in the frenetic pace of modern society. Perhaps, he considered, there might be advantages to this adventure, after all.

Then his stomach growled. All right , he thought, rising and picking up his crude spears. I hear you. Be patient .

Soon he was loping quietly, scanning the branches, but not as a passive watcher anymore. Now he set out through the trees — listening with his ears, seeking with his eyes — hunting clues to where on this little plateau he might find that next meal.

□ It’s now official. Scientists at NASA confirm that their oldest operating spacecraft, Voyager 2 , has become the first man-made object to pass completely beyond the solar system.

Actually, the boundaries of the sun’s family are debatable. Last century, Voyager’s distance exceeded that of Pluto, the ninth planet. Another milestone was celebrated when the venerable spacecraft reached the solar shock front, where it met atoms from interstellar space. Most astronomers, however, say Voyager was still within old Sol’s influence until it passed through the “heliopause” and left behind the solar wind, which happened in the year 2037, a decade later than predicted.

Data from Voyager’s little ten-watt transmitter help scientists refine their models of the Universe. But what most people find astonishing is that the primitive robot — launched sixty-five years ago — still functions at all. It defies every expectation, by its designers or modern engineers. Perhaps some preserving property of deep space is responsible. But a more colorful suggestion has been offered by the Friends of St. Francis Assembly [$ SIG.Rel.disc. 12-RsyPD 634399889.058], a Catholic special interest group that contends Voyager’s survival was “miraculous,” in the exact sense of the word.

“We now strongly believe the oldest heavenly commandment commissions humanity to go forth, observe God’s works, and glorify Him by giving names to all things.

“ In that quest, no human venture has dared so much or succeeded as well as Voyager. It has given us moons and rings and distant planets, great valleys and craters and other marvels. It plumbed Jupiter’s storms and Saturn’s lightning and sent home pictures of the puzzle that is Miranda. No other modern enterprise has so glorified the Creator, showing us as much of

His grand design, as faithful Voyager, our first emissary to the stars .”

A colorful and not unpleasant thought to contemplate these days, as the airwaves fill once more with hints of looming crisis. It’s a touch of optimism we might all do well to think about.

This is Corrine Fletcher, reporting for Reuters III from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in New Pasadena, California.

[□ reporter-bio: C.FLETCHER-REUT.III. Credibility ratings: CaAd-2, Viewers’ Union (2038). BaAb-1, World Watchers Ltd., 2038.]

The paleogeologists wanted to know what was going on. “All these strange events, Stan… holes in China, pillars of smoke at sea. Do you have any idea what it’s about?” Even if there hadn’t been a cordon sanitaire of Danish and NATO soldiers around the Tangoparu dome, Dr. Nielsen and the others would certainly have suspected something was happening. The whole world suspected, and Stan had never been much good at poker.