Lawrence Schoen: Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard

The daypouch held food, but he’d been thinking about making one large enough to carry books. Jorl had taught him to read and loaned him books, one at a time at first, but as many as three at a go, now. Most had stories about Fant who had lived in the past, and he liked best the stories that Jorl himself had written. Pizlo’s penmanship was just about good enough for him to write down some of his own stories, the ones that swam in his head, coming to him from a place beyond dreams. But paper and ink were hard for him to keep hold of as he rambled from place to place.

He spat out the last of the leaves and stood. He’d come here with a purpose beyond plunging down at speed. Clambering over tree roots, slogging through thick mud, and fording a pair of fast-moving streams, he came at last to his destination at the base of one of the massive meta-trees that made the Civilized Wood possible. A name had been carved into the bole, the incised letters stained and filled in with something like sap. Arlo’s name.

A small pile of river stones marked the spot where the remains had been planted. Pizlo had watched from hiding as Jorl performed the rite.

He’d awakened this morning to the whisper of one of the marking stones, urging him to visit. That had been new, and new was always interesting. He was here now, and wondering what would come to him.

As though stumbling from a dream into deep water, Pizlo pulled together several pieces of concentration and compared memories of the letters written on the tree and the fading letters he’d written earlier on the air. He closed his eyes and felt the world fall away. In his mind, the blackness deepened to something darker than black. He waited.

Time passed. His little body grew exhausted. His stomach rumbled and his throat felt dry. He chose not to notice. He emptied his attention into that blackness, like a fisherman might lower a net into the sea, patient for the catch to come to him.

When it did, the sight made him smile. There was Jorl. He looked tired, maybe a little scared. Before Pizlo could ask himself what could scare a grown-up, he saw Jorl change. He couldn’t say what was different, and it didn’t make sense. There was more of Jorl than could possibly be, but he was still himself. Like the ocean was the same water whether you cupped some of it in your hands or waded out until the waves crashed over your head. Jorl smiled as he grew, so vast he filled up the darkness and forced Pizlo to open his eyes to the more ordinary gloom of the Shadow Dwell.

He reached up and found a handhold in the tree, enough to start scrambling up, beginning the long trip back to the Civilized Wood. With luck, he might get back in time to visit Tolta for dinner. As he climbed, Pizlo’s fingers roamed over his face. He discovered he’d brought Jorl’s smile back with him from the blackness. He wished he’d managed to bring an aleph with him. Maybe he would find a way to do that. Next time.

THOUGHshe had never actually met one in the flesh, Lirlowil hated the Fant. Her hatred was a recent development, acquired after she’d been forcibly removed from the world of her birth and imprisoned in a suite of rooms aboard an automated station orbiting Barsk.

Beautiful by Otter standards, she’d spent the last few years enjoying the peaks of privilege earned not by any act of her own, but by the random chance that gifted her with being able to both read minds and talk to the dead. Unless you had the misfortune to be one of those disgusting Fant on Barsk, you could go your entire life without encountering a Speaker. The drug that triggered the ability was fiendishly expensive, and rarely worked the first few times. Alliance science had yet to determine what genetic markers resulted in the talent. Off Barsk, Speakers were unlikely, though hardly uncommon. True telepaths though, people who could effortlessly slip inside the mind of other beings and sample their memories and knowledge as easily as flipping the pages of a book, were orders of magnitude more rare.

The number of individuals with both sets of abilities would make for a very small dinner party indeed. Lirlowil’s mental gifts emerged with puberty and elevated her social status a thousandfold. The discovery that her talents included Speaking occurred a couple years later when she’d sampled some koph at a party and began seeing nefshons over the next hour’s time.

Sharv, her home, was a mixed world, a glamour planet of mild climates. The days never grew uncomfortably hot, and the rain fell only lightly and at opportune times. Tourists came as much to enjoy its many sights as to be seen enjoying them. Artists of every description lived and worked there, mingling media and inventing new delights which sold for outrageous sums offworld. None of its cities contained more than a million souls nor possessed any heavy industry. The population included not only Otters but also Bears, Elk, a smattering of Yak, and the omnipresent Cats. The people of Lirlowil’s homeworld had registered her as a planetary treasure, and even among the hedonistic lifestyles common to Otters she began to set a new standard as a sybaritic party girl. But there were no parties aboard the station, and the closest thing to hedonism Lirlowil had found was the ability to sleep in as late as she wished.

The station consisted of a giant wheel of attached warehouses connected to a central hub; the hub in turn linked to a beanstalk reaching down to a spot on the equator of Barsk. Enormous containers climbed up the beanstalk every hour. The Patrol crew that lived in the hub moved each of them to one warehouse or another, until such time as a vessel arrived and emptied the contents into its own hold and then departed. Sometimes these ships swapped out people, station workers taking berths on a supply ship or vice versa, trading one form of monotony for another. No one ever came to relieve Lirlowil.

She’d arrived there like so much cargo herself. A Bear from the Patrol had shown up at her home on Sharv. One moment she’d been fast asleep, dreaming of the debaucheries from the night before, and the next he’d been standing over her bed with a writ of transference in his hand and trailing a small entourage made up of a Prairie Dog wearing a civil parson’s ring in one twitching ear, and an Otter, only a few years older than Lirlowil, garbed like a physician’s assistant.

“I am Urs-Major Krasnoi,” said the Bear. “I do not need your consent, but I do require you to be fully conscious. Can you tell me your name?”

This didn’t make any sense. She wriggled her neck and shoulders a moment in thought, remembered the distinction between dreams and hallucinations, realized she was in bed and made a leap of faith as she asked, “What the fuck are you doing in my dream?”

The Bear had frowned at her, but his next words hadn’t made it into her memory. Perhaps she’d gone back to sleep. The next thing she recalled was the feeling that her heart would explode, it was pounding so fast. The PA was leaning over her, an empty ampoule in one hand. As Lirlowil began to sweat, puke, and piss herself into a clear-eyed panic, she understood she’d been slipped a sobriety agent which was systematically purging any and all toxins from her body as if her life depended on it.

Gasping, she sat up in bed and grimaced. Nudity in front of strangers didn’t bother her but being covered in her own filth surely did. The Prairie Dog stepped up, wrinkling his own nose, and opened a small book.

“The universe is vast and complex, comprising many peoples and many worlds.” Lirlowil rolled her eyes but managed to suppress a giggle. Still, the solemnity of his words were marred by the shrill pitch of his voice. “Rarely do any of us have the opportunity to be of service beyond the immediate circle of our own community. But when that chance occurs we must welcome it. Failing that, we must rely upon that same community to recognize the circumstance for what it is and surrender us up to that need. Gaze with me now upon such an individual and bear witness to what we do.”