Lawrence Schoen - Barsk - The Elephants' Graveyard

Pizlo shook his head, careful not to cause his trunk to spatter any stray drops of cocoa.

“How long have you heard things talking to you that others can’t hear?”

He shrugged. “Forever. At least, as long as I can remember.”

The Yak nodded and set his mug aside. “Druz tells me you have the ability of a powerful precognitivist. I’ve never seen even an inkling of that talent in anyone prior to adulthood. For one so young, I can imagine it being disorienting, even frightening. But your unconscious came up with a story to make sense of it. The voices you hear aren’t coming from the world around you, they’re the glimpses of the future your own mind has gleaned via your precognitive powers.”

Pizlo shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t want to offend the Yak, not when he’d only just found another person who would talk to him, but the Bos had it completely wrong. Pizlo didn’t understand about metaphors and powers, but he knew himself. All of Keslo spoke to him, every day he was there. They didn’t usually tell him big or important things about the future, just regular, everyday stuff. Sure, the moons taught him oceans of things, and sometimes that included pieces that hadn’t happened yet, but he’d only seen four moons in his whole life, and most of those had been in the current season.

It was only then that he realized with a pang that, except for when he’d seen Telko through that big window, nothing had spoken to him since he’d left Barsk. He’d blamed it on all the metal and plastic around him. Living things could talk, but not the dead walls that people had built to let them live here so high above the world. And yet, here in this dead place, he’d met two new people who talked to him! Was one thing the result of the other, or was it all just a coincidence?

The senator was looking at him like he expected some answer even though he hadn’t asked a question. Pizlo nodded once, and then looked back down at his mug and took another drink. It really was good cocoa.

“I’m sure Jorl has been an excellent teacher, but he has other demands on his time and the resources available on Barsk are somewhat limited. Let me tell you about some of the things you’ll experience when you visit Dawn with me and meet some of the other precognitivists who have come to help me to do the work of the Alliance—”

Senator Bish kept talking, but Pizlo paid him little attention. The man was so obviously wrong with all that stuff about metaphor. Besides, something in the Fant’s head had come loose and more and more of the finer details that Telko had shoved into him were falling into place. Stories and ideas that had just hung in Pizlo’s mind before now had an order and a timeliness to them. Things were speeding up and getting ready to happen, not just the thing that would change this nice old man into an abomination but other pieces, too. He understood the flow of them now, and knew that Jorl’s transformation was coming up fast.

Meanwhile the Yak kept on talking. Pizlo nodded and smiled and offered up the occasional polite agreement when the rhythm of the one-sided conversation seemed to demand it. At some point, his friend the Sloth had come back into the room. She replenished the supply of cocoa and kept refilling both his and the senator’s mugs. Pizlo continued listening to the Yak and kept drinking the cocoa until he thought he would burst or, worse, fall asleep. The old man sure liked to talk. It bothered Pizlo that he could so hunger for more people to talk to him only to have that need met by someone who had nothing to say. He took a deep breath and tried to clear his head, catching the end of some fragment about boat races and shaping the future for all the peoples of the Alliance.

He was about to ask the senator to go back and tell him again the part about the boat races when he felt something click into place. The next thing that his last moon had told him had just come to pass. He felt it in his bones, much like when he had known he had reached the equator. It sent a shiver through his body and he sat up and almost slid off the couch.

“Is something wrong, Son? You look troubled.”

“Oh! No, I’m fine it’s just … It’s happened. I knew it would, and it has. But knowing it will isn’t as good as knowing it has.” Pizlo looked up at the senator. “Have you ever felt like that?”

“What are you talking about? Have you had a vision? Druz, are your instruments calibrated to him yet?”

The Brady shrugged with embarrassment. “I believe so, yes. The resonance of it was several times anything I’ve recorded before. I didn’t mention it, as I thought the equipment acting up, but if he confirms—”

“Tell me what you saw, Son.”

“I saw Jorl.”

“Oh really? What about him?”

“Not him. Them.”

ITS …no, her, eyes darted side to side in obvious confusion. Jorl waited. He’d witnessed a wide range of reactions from first time conversants; disorientation was nothing new. It usually lasted only a few moments, to be followed by apprehension and ultimately fear. Tens of thousands of Speakers existed throughout the galaxy, and while the experience might not be as routine off Barsk as it was for Fant, everyone in the Alliance knew about summoning. But that knowledge only came to mind after the initial disorientation. And yet … the person before him came from a time without Speakers.

She looked like nothing Jorl had ever seen.

If the Archetype of Man hadn’t referred to Dr. Chieko Castleman with feminine pronouns, he wasn’t sure he’d have made that assumption. She wore a lot of clothing — though not as much as Jorl’s colleagues in the Patrol had insisted he wear — a pale blue sleeveless shirt that opened at the neck, black shorts from waist to knee, and durable-looking boots that suggested her race had delicate feet. Most astonishingly, the woman had almost no fur. There was a knotted bundle of night black hair atop her head, and a pair of slender, matching brows on the ridge above each eye, but every other bit of her that wasn’t hidden by clothing appeared hairless. Her skin was light, but not as colorless as Pizlo’s, more like a slightly aging parchment. Despite himself, Jorl stared.

And the odd creature stared right back. She seemed to have gotten over her confusion but had not yet moved on to the next phase. Beads of moisture appeared on her forehead and her chest began to billow as she breathed in and out rapidly. Her eyes widened and Jorl feared the woman would hyperventilate. Then, as quickly as she had begun, she mastered herself and slowed her breathing. She looked around again, and this time appeared to see the room’s simple furnishings. As Jorl watched, she bent at the knee like most people would and sat on the bench. She brought her hands to her face and thrust them upward into her hair, spreading the moisture from her palms and up into her scalp, leaving her eyes closed.

Jorl waited. From the moment he understood he’d be able to Speak to this woman, he’d abandoned any idea of using the establishing rituals. They were a part of time that meant nothing here. Instead he focused on patience and put the real world out of his thoughts.

In time, Dr. Castleman dropped her hands. Her eyes remained closed.

“How … how is it that I am here? And where is here? And … and…”

“What is the last thing you can recall?” Jorl inquired, with a whisper.

The woman’s head came up, her eyes opened and stared into Jorl’s. Castleman’s were green, with small flecks of something, perhaps gold. She had interesting eyes, with more white to them than he’d expected. But not otherwise remarkable. Not the eyes of a being who could create sapient life as the Archetype had insisted.