Алан Дин Фостер - Relic

Tespo being a suburb of Pe’leoek, this was not a problem for the two travelers, especially since they were journeying from the high peninsula of the capital to a community lying at sea level. Using Kel’les’s priority identification, they were able to jump the queue. None of the individuals or families waiting to use the transport system begrudged them this advantage. Leastwise, not visibly. To do so, especially in public, would have been unforgivably impolite.

“I wish I could have examined a human teleport system in action.” Kel’les entered their destination and stepped backward onto the platform. Ruslan had preceded him and stood waiting. “So much potentially useful technology lost.” His epiglottal membrane vibrated to indicate his regret.

“Your people have found some valuable remnants,” Ruslan reminded him. “The Aura Malignance destroyed people, not physicalities.”

“That is so.” A rising electronic prattle that sounded like millions of tiny seeds being poured onto a flat glass surface began to fill the chamber. “But it is astounding to see how swiftly Nature reclaims that which has been abandoned. Too many of your centers of knowledge and systems for retaining records were overwhelmed by the elements or destroyed by anarchic elements of your society before we could reach them. We are continuously searching for more, of course. As are the Hahk’na and others who now know of your demise.”

So the Myssari were not too polite to engage in a little salvage competition, Ruslan thought. “I’m sorry I’m not a scientist. If I were, I would be able to help you more.”

Kel’les looked surprised. “You would do that?”

The human shrugged, a gesture the handler had come to recognize. “Why not? The survival of knowledge is more important than the survival of a race. Knowledge transcends species.”

Kel’les was about to comment when s’he disappeared.

Their actual physical selves were not moved. They were destroyed. As they were obliterated, duplicates of themselves that were exact down to the simplest molecule of the last cell appeared in a reception booth within the scientific complex at Tespo. Billions of such transits had taken place without a single accident, though the urban legends of the Myssari whispered of the occasional traveler who arrived sans a limb, or with two reversed, or absent more sensitive portions of their anatomy.

Ruslan never gave the process a thought. The worst that could happen was that he would die. Darkness would steal upon him soon enough anyway. Despite his situation he did not long for it, but neither did he waste time lamenting its increasing proximity. The air around Pe’leoek was too fresh, the sun too warm, the strange sounds that passed for laughter among Myssari youth too effervescent. When the time came, he would depart readily, with no regrets.

Tespo was comprised of twelve identical large structures. Half were given over to the cause of science, the other half to its support. Each edifice was shaped like a giant teardrop that had flowed uphill; the smaller end terminated at a narrow beach, the much larger bulbous end ballooning up into the rolling hills. They were substantial buildings rising to twenty or thirty stories in height at the thickest point of the structures and descending several stories or more into the ground. Slathered in exteriors of a muted golden brown, they absorbed more of the intense sunshine than they reflected, rising up the hillsides like gargantuan droplets of molten bronze.

Emerging from the arrival booth deep inside one of the buildings, Ruslan saw none of this. If anything, he was more of an object of great, if respectful, curiosity here than he was in the city proper. To those Myssari of a scientific bent, he could not be otherwise. He was fluent enough now to understand even their whispers.

“The last of its kind… Two legs and no tail, how does it stay upright?… Such large eyes, what do they see?… Why is an Ordinary escorting it?…”

An Ordinary. Such was Kel’les’s general professional classification. To Ruslan the Myssari intermet was anything but an Ordinary. S’he was a friend.

The three members of the Humankind Research Sectionary would have liked to be accounted his friends, too, but Ruslan found that he was unable to release his emotions to them. With Kel’les he had gradually gained the feeling that the Myssari was more interested in him than in whatever knowledge of a lost species Ruslan might be able to supply. Whenever he found himself in the presence of the trio of scientists, he felt the reverse. They tried hard enough to be convivial. Probably too hard. Though he realized this, it did nothing to sway his opinion. He had no interest in furthering emotional accommodation.

Nevertheless he was as cordial as any of his hosts as they greeted one another. The chamber he and Kel’les had entered was nearly devoid of furniture. There was no need for it to occupy floor space when whatever was necessary could be summoned with a command. Bac’cul did just that, bringing forth from the floor places to sit, liquids to drink, and a transparency of the far wall that boasted a fine view of green-blue hillside on which could be seen grazing, with infinite slowness, small groups of what looked like dog-sized orange slugs. Beyond the field lay yet another massive, teardrop-shaped structure, and beyond it, another.

Dogs. Ruslan found himself remembering dogs. On Seraboth as well as elsewhere, they had rapidly gone from being man’s best friend to scavengers and predators. In a way, he envied them their simple and straightforward regression. It would ensure them the survival that had eluded their masters.

In addition to Bac’cul he recognized Cor’rin and Yah’thom. Two males and one female. As it did frequently these days, he found his mind wandering. Did they look at an intermet like Kel’les with lust, or purely as a colleague? As it required three Myssari to procreate naturally, were emotional relationships correspondingly far more complicated? Despite all the time he had spent in Pe’leoek, he had never been able to successfully appreciate or analyze Myssari feelings. It was not that they were reluctant to discuss such matters; they were too polite to do so.

In keeping with contemporary Myssari design, there were no sharp angles or corners in the room. This extended from the architecture to the limited amount of scientific equipment on view to personal items. Every surface was opaque. A diurnal folk with sensitive eyes were not fond of reflective surfaces. The view out the back wall would automatically dim as the sun rose.

The cylindrical container from which he sipped a mixture of sweet and bitter liquid posed no difficulty for his simian hand. The dark green metal surface was lightly pebbled to provide a better grip. Though his fingers were shorter than those of a Myssari, he had five on each hand to their three. What they could not understand was why human manipulatory digits varied in length. The evolutionary engineering behind the thumb they could comprehend, but not Nature’s rationale for making each of the remaining four digits a different length, nor why this should vary even among individuals.

“I couldn’t tell you,” he had replied when they had asked him about it. “All I know about anatomy is what I see in a mirror. If it helps, I don’t understand the evolutionary reasoning behind a lot of what I see, either.”

As she regarded him, Cor’rin’s narrow mouth twisted and she blinked. Since the bony orbits in which her oculars reposed were entirely inflexible, she could not narrow her eyes in the human manner. The mouth twist was the Myssari version of a welcoming smile. Though she was female, nothing about her voice was particularly feminine. Save for those who had for entertainment or other purposes deliberately chosen to have surgical manipulation performed on their vocal apparatus, male, female, and intermet Myssari all sounded the same. It forced Ruslan to focus harder on physical discrepancies in order to be able to identify and recognize individuals.