Ivan Cat - The Burning Heart of Night

one cathode and one anode to create the volatile hydrogen-oxygen mixture? which accounted only for the main conflagration. Something baffling and deeply disturbing was occurring on his ship.

Kthulah scintillated, equally confused.

Arrou translated. Kthulah say should be only four.

"Four?" Karr asked. "There should be only one."

Kthulah say Prophecy demand sacred number of four.

Karr shook his head slowly. "I don't put much stock in prophecies, Arrou. Too many people invest too much hope and time waiting for mumbo-jumbo which doesn't ever come true."

Arrou and Kthulah flashed. The old alien turned on Karr, wrinkled muzzle skin furrowing.

"Kthulah say Karr not understand. Kthulah not waiting for Prophecy to come true. Kthulah waiting for Prophecy to come true again."

Karr turned to the old Khafra. "This?" Karr pointed at the five fires. "This has happened before?"

"Kthulah says yes. Long time ago. Three times."

Karr shut up as Kthulah told a story....

Arrou translated:

Long, long before. Before Pact. Before Burning Heart. When world was cold and dark. Many things grew, plants, foodbeasts. Many different kinds of things. Khafra lived forever. Never old, never dying. Khafra lived Balanced.

But Khafra sad.

Why? Because Khafra are blank!

(Like humans.)

Long this before-time lasts, like bad dream. Always in shadow. Always hiding, always fearing.

Never ending, never seeing. Always night and never day. Khafra not even can wish for better, because Khafra not even now there is "better" to wish for.

(Urrr. Scary story.)

Long time passes.

Then, one time, Khafra see Tears. Long, red Tears fall from sky. And big light blossoms in night. Burning Heart of Night. Now Khafra see what is better than dark. Radiance. Burning Heart births Radiances (four) into dark world. Suddenly there is day. Khafra worship Burning Heart.

And when Burning Heart escapes with three Radiances, one Radiance stays. This Burning Heart's first gift to Khafra:

Present of Radiance.

Present to Balanced Khafra, suffering-long Khafra. Present goes into Khafra. Now Khafra are

not blank.

Khafra shine in dark like bright day. Khafra not scared anymore.

Another long time passes. Always in light and never dark. Always living and never dying. Too long a time! Khafra forget suffering. Remember only selves, think of and love only selves. Want only pleasure. Tears fall again. Burning Heart blossoms again. But selfish Khafra ignore it. Not Balanced.

(Stupid, stupid.)

Burning Heart births four Radiances and escapes with four Radiances. Leaves present for imBalanced Khafra:

Present of Death.

Now Khafra get old. Khafra die. Big sickness comes. Light gets weak, night gets long. Now Khafra remember dark, remember afraid. Many things die fast: plants, foodbeasts, slitherers, and buzzers. Many things not live ever again. Extinct. Only animals that birth fast survive. Or trees that birth very slow. Khafra almost go extinct.

So Khafra are sorry for being bad, sorry for being imBalanced. Promise to be different next time Tears fall. Promise very hard. Ferals use knowledge of plants to try to stay alive. Barely stay alive. But suffering keeps memories good. Next time when Tears fall and Burning Heart of Night blossoms, Khafra go. When Burning Heart births four radiances, Khafra gather. Keep to good, keep to Balance. And when Burning Heart escapes with Radiances, Khafra save one piece, keep one Radiance. So Burning Heart leaves present for Balanced Khafra: Present of Pact.

Pact keeps Khafra never sick, always healthy. Khafra not immortal. Khafra live forty years, then die. That is Pact. But Pact keeps Radiance strong. Night and day Balanced. Birth and death Balanced. All not happy, but all not sad. Khafra live satisfied, for long, long time.

The Roots of Wisdom spoke to Jenette, the Judges stimulating vein after vein on the columns, like turning pages in a musty tome. The amount of ancient lore overwhelmed Jenette at first, but gradually, methodically, Jenette began to sift the intermingled mythology and superstition from history and fact.

The Burning Heart of Night? it all kept coming back to that.

The more Jenette searched for an understanding of the Feral life cycle for any sort of clue that could help human scientists in the quest for a cure to Scourge, the more the root-archives lead her back to the Burning Heart of Night, and the more the imagery of the root tomes rekindled images Jenette had seen with her own eyes. The descriptions of Tears falling from the sky? shooting stars circling the night sky, once, twice, before falling into the ocean? were exactly as Jenette had seen them fall the night she fled the Enclave with Arrou. And the descriptions of the Burning Heart itself, of its towering pillars of Radiance, were like the pillar of hydrogen fire over Karr's ship. Eventually, the roots foretold, the Burning Heart would change from one large Radiance, to four smaller Radiances, which did not line up with what Jenette had seen herself, but other than that it was the same. She could not conclude otherwise. Karr's fugueship was the Burning Heart of Night, that crucial event which so much of Feral society and even biology, pivoted around. And that was not all. Jenette soon came to another shocking conclusion...

Fugueships had been to New Ascension before!

Not just once, but at least three times. The Roots of Wisdom revealed many crucial facts which Jenette began to work together to form a timeline of Feral life cycles and runaway planetary biology, of the coming of Scourge and immune venom, of fugueship immune systems and infinitesimal interstellar stowaways. Each time Fugueships had come to New Ascension, drastic change to the planetary ecology accompanied them.

Ferals had no glowbuds. Then a fugueship came and Ferals suddenly had flashbuds.

Ferals did not die, or at least lived a very long time. Then suddenly a fugueship came and Ferals got sick and died.

Ferals were dying out as a species. Then suddenly a fugueship came and Ferals had Pact.

Jenette's conversion of base-four Feral dates had the instances occurring over a span of ten thousand years? far more rapidly than evolution could account for such biological upheaval. There was only one deduction Jenette could make:

Fugueships were infecting New Ascension.

Somehow, foreign bio-matter was surviving the rigors of interstellar space, the fugueship's vigorous immune defenses, and the fiery planetfall into New Ascension's oceans. The odds were long, but then Jenette reasoned it would only take one microscopic particle finding its way to a living, New Ascension host. Growth and change would transpire exponentially from there as the foreign invaders worked their way through the local biology.

Gifts the Feral mythology named the infections.

First infection: foreign bio-matter plus Ferals equals glowbuds. No plausibility problems there. Even contemporary Khafra kits had to be exposed to immune venom essence before their hair follicles transformed into glowing nodules.

Second infection: foreign bio-matter introduces a pathogen that kills large numbers of plant and animal species on a planetary scale. Those species with high reproductive output adapted better to the unstable new ecology. Slow reproducing Ferals cling to life with all their knowledge of healing and plant chemistry.