Foreigner

*16*

Wingfinger fanciers had long been thrilled by the ability of certain of the flying reptiles to find their way home no matter how far away one took them. Over time, using such wingfingers to carry messages had become common.

The Dasheter originally had two large homing wingfingers in its cargo holds, swooping over the wooden crates. One of them had been used earlier to send a list of needed provisions.

The supply ship had been carrying a replacement wingfinger for the Dasheter, but it had died en route.

Still, there was one wingfinger left. It had been raised at the maritime rookery north of Capital City and would return there if set free. A fish-eater, it would have no trouble feeding itself on the long journey home.

Toroca wrote the following on a small strip of leather, which Keenir affixed to the animal’s left leg:

From Kee-Toroca to Dy-Dybo, urgent.

Found chain of islands at 25 percent north latitude, 75 percent back-side longitude. Inhabited by beings similar to Quintaglios but smaller in stature. Mere sight of them triggers dagamant in all of us except me; by contrast, they seem to have no overt sense of territoriality at all. We killed many of them and now 40 of their ships are pursuing Dasheter back to Land. We are traveling under only two sails, luring them toward Capital City. Will arrive around 7131/03/81. The Others use tools to kill and can lie. Prepare defense.

Keenir strapped a padded rest onto his arm. The wingfinger perched on it, its claws tearing tufts out of the padding. Toroca and Keenir headed up on deck. The wingfinger’s inner and outer eyelids snapped up and down; it wasn’t used to the daylight. The captain lifted his arm and the flyer took to the air. It rose above the Dasheter’s masts, circled the ship as if getting its bearings, then headed west at precisely the right angle.

“Let’s hope it gets there,” said Keenir.

Toroca watched the animal fly away with leisurely flaps of its wing membranes. He made no reply.

Although worship of the original five hunters no longer had to be practiced secretly, it still wasn’t something one paraded in public. After all, anyone associating with it now had likely been a secret practitioner earlier, and to have been involved with cabals and deceit would not do one credit. Still, some were open in their current or past worship of the original five. Among them was Afsan’s aide, Pal-Cadool. Perhaps he could answer Mokleb’s questions.

Cadool was easy to spot. Tall, thin, ungainly, he stood head and shoulders above Quintaglios tens of kilodays older than himself. Mokleb found him making his way down the Avenue of Traders, one of Capital City’s main streets. She had met Cadool a few times but had only previously seen him walking with Afsan, taking small steps beside the blind sage. But here, out on his own, Cadool’s spider-like legs and brisk pace carried him down the paving stones at an amazing rate. Mokleb risked jogging up behind him. She came within five paces, knowing that by the time he reacted, he’d have put another few between them. “Pal-Cadool!”

Cadool came to a halt, his long body swaying like a ship’s mast as if eager to get back into motion. He turned. “Yes?”

“It’s me, Nav-Mokleb. I need to talk to you.”

Cadool nodded, but there was no warmth in his voice. “Hahat dan.”

“Your tone is harsh,” said Mokleb. “Have I done something to offend you?”

Cadool’s muzzle was angled away from Mokleb, making clear that his black eyes were not looking at her. “You’ve been spending much time with Afsan.”

“Yes.”

“His work is backing up. His students are not getting enough time with him.”

“I’m trying to cure him of his bad dreams.”

“He’s been seeing you for hundreds of days now and his dreams are no better. Indeed, they might even be worse. He looks haggard. His lack of sleep is obvious.”

“A cure takes time.”

Cadool did swing his muzzle to face her now. “And to cure someone as famous as Afsan would be a boon to your career.”

“Doubtless so,” said Mokleb. “But I’m not deliberately protracting the therapy.”

“I’ve looked into your work,” said Cadool. “I can’t read myself, but Pettit—Afsan’s apprentice—was kind enough to read a book about your techniques to me. You believe we do not always consciously know what we are doing.”

“Just so.”

“So you could be stretching out your dealings with Afsan; that you consciously claim not to be is irrelevant. After all, the more difficult you make it appear to cure Afsan, the greater the glory you get.”

Mokleb’s nictitating membranes beat up and down. She clicked her teeth. “Why, Cadool, that observation is positively worthy of me! But I’m afraid it does take a long time to find the underlying causes of problems. Nothing would make me happier than to have Afsan cured. I remain detached during our sessions—it’s important that he reveal himself directly, rather than simply react to a tone I set-—but I do care about him, and it pains me to see him continuing to hurt.”

Cadool seemed unmollified. “You ask him a lot of questions.”

“Yes.”

“And he tells you many things.”

“Ah,” said Mokleb. “That’s it, isn’t it? Prior to my arrival, you were Afsan’s confidant. It bothers you that he now shares the intimate details of his life with me.”

Cadool lifted a hand so that Mokleb could see the pointed tips of his claws peeking out of their sheaths. “Not everyone,” he said slowly, “wishes to be analyzed by you.”

Mokleb took a step back, conceding territory. “Of course. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“If that’s all you wish to say, then please excuse me. I have business to attend to.”

“No, wait. I did seek you out for a purpose. I need your help.”

“My help?”

“Yes. I need some information.”

Cadool’s voice was firm. “I will not betray Afsan’s confidences. Not to you or anyone.”

“I’m not looking for that kind of information. I want to know about the five original hunters. You are a Lubalite.”

“Yes.”

“I need to know about Mekt.”

Cadool sounded intrigued despite himself. “Why?”

“To help me with my work with Afsan.”

“Afsan has mentioned Mekt to you?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then what?”

Mokleb decided there’d be little harm in telling Cadool. “Whenever Afsan discusses the Original Five, he mentions Mekt last.”

“Afsan has an orderly mind,” said Cadool. “It doesn’t surprise me that he recites lists in the same sequence each time.”

“Ah, but that’s just it. He recites the other four names in no particular order at all, but Mekt is always last. Indeed, sometimes he hesitates before mentioning her name.”

“And this is significant?”

“Yes, indeed. It’s through such things that we can catch glimpses of the forces that move us.”

Cadool looked unconvinced. “Whatever you say, Mokleb.” He paused for a moment, then: “Like the other original hunters, Mekt was formed from one of the five fingers of God’s severed left arm. Some scholars—ones like you, who emphasize the order in which things are said—suggest that she was the second hunter formed, after Lubal, since her name is mentioned second in the first sacred scroll. Mekt was a great hunter and is probably best remembered for killing an armorback, as told in the fourth scroll. When the original five hunters and original five mates began laying claims to specific territories, legend has it that Mekt took much of what is now Capital province’s northern coast and part of eastern Chu’toolar.”

“Anything else?”

“Not really, except the famous part, but surely you already know that.”

“Know what?”

“Why, that Mekt was the first bloodpriest.”

“She was?”

“Goodness, Mokleb, surely you know at least the first sacred scroll? ‘The ten who had been the fingers of God came together and produced five clutches of eight eggs. But God said soon all of Land would be overrun with Quintaglios if all those egglings were allowed to live. Therefore, She charged Mekt with devouring seven out of every eight hatchlings, and Mekt was thus the first bloodpriest.’ ”

“I thought bloodpriests were all male.”

“They are now. The seventeenth scroll is all about that.” Cadool shook his head. “I’m surprised, Mokleb: I can’t read, and even I know these things.”

“What does the seventeenth scroll say?”

“That Mekt refused to continue being the bloodpriest. She said it was inappropriate for one who lays eggs to be involved in the devouring of hatchlings. By that time, there were many more Quintaglios than just the original ten, and Detoon the Righteous—you do know who he was, I hope—established a secondary priestly order, exclusively male, to look after culling the infants.”

“Fascinating,” said Mokleb.

Cadool shook his head again. “You know, Mokleb, given that you can read, you really should do it more often.”

Mokleb, her mind racing, bowed concession. “That I should.”

Novato and Garios finished loading the lifeboat with supplies: dried meat and fish, amphoras full of water, books in case the journey up the tower proved boring, paper for making notes and sketches in case it did not, leather blankets in case it got cold, and. of course, one of Novato’s best far-seers.

Although from the outside the lifeboat’s hull was rounded, the interior was all a simple rectangular hollow. As she loaded her!ast carton of meat, Novato shuddered. The lifeboat had seemed roomy when empty, and now, filled with provisions, it perhaps could be described as cozy, but twenty days within might make her mad with claustrophobia. Still, that was the round-trip value: after ten days, the lifeboat should reach the summit of the tower. Perhaps she’d be able to get out then and walk around.

Finally, it was time to go. Garios and Karshirl stood just outside the lifeboat’s open doorway, ready to say goodbye. Novato bowed to them, then said simply, “See you later.”

But Garios was not one to let such a moment pass without something more. He handed a small object to Novato. It was a traveler’s crystal, six-sided and ruby red. “Good luck,” he said, then, bowing deeply, he quoted the Song of Belbar: “ ‘If beasts confront you, slay them. If the elements conspire against you, overcome. And if God should call you to heaven before you return, then heaven will be the richer for it, and those you leave behind will honor you and mourn your passing.’ ” He paused. “Travel well, my friend.”

Novato bowed once more, then leaned back on her tail and touched the part of the wall that controlled the door. From the inside, the lifeboat’s walls grew momentarily foggy, and she knew that from the outside they would have appeared to liquefy. When the walls cleared again a moment later, not even a faint etching on the transparent hull material marked where the door had been.

The lifeboat began to move up the tower. Looking down through the floor, Novato could see Garios and Karshirl rapidly diminishing from view—father and daughter, although they probably didn’t know that. It was only because of the difference in their sizes, Garios being twice Karshirl’s age, that Novato could tell them apart.

After just a few moments, the lifeboat had passed through the apex of the blue pyramid and was now rising up in the open air. The pyramid was sitting in a hollow scooped out of the cliff. The strip of beach on either side of the pyramid’s base looked like a beige line.

The coastline of Fra’toolar was enjoying a rare day of reasonably clear skies. Novato’s view continued undiminished, except for the parts blocked by the four ladder-like sides of the tower. She could soon see huge tracts of Fra’toolar province and, stretching off to the south and east, the vast world-spanning body of water, each wave cap an actinic point reflecting back the fierce white sun.

The lifeboat had accelerated briefly, but now seemed to be moving at a steady rate: equal intervals elapsed between the passing of each rung of the ladders. Novato had seen ground from the air before, when flying aboard her glider, the Tak-Saleed, and its successor, the Lub-Kaden. But she’d never been this high up. Looking straight out, she could see that she was passing the levels of distant clouds. Looking up, the four sides of the tower converged infinitely far above her head.

Novato had worked with charcoal and graphite to capture images of planets and moons observed through her far-seers. But those illustrations had been made over daytenths, with objects crawling across her field of view. She wanted to sketch what she was seeing now, but with each moment the ground receded further and previously invisible parts of the landscape appeared at the edges.

Rivers and streams cut across Fra’toolar like arteries and veins. Tracts of forest and open fields were visible. And what was that? A series of rounded brown hills—hills that were moving! A thunderbeast stampede!

Novato felt dizzy as the heights grew greater. She could now see well into the interior of Fra’toolar, although clouds obscured much of it to the north, their tops fiercely bright with reflected sun.

A flock of wingfingers was moving by the tower: imperial jacks. judging by the colors. She hadn’t realized they flew this high up. But already they were disappearing below, although she could easily make out the flock’s distinctive tri-pronged flying pattern as it passed by, heading east.

Novato was high enough now that the blue tower itself vanished into nothingness before it reached the ground. Although she assumed the tower was of equal width all the way to the top, it was as though she were in the middle of an incredibly elongated blue diamond, a diamond that tapered to infinitely fine points above and below.

The sun had moved visibly toward the western horizon now. Looking down, Novato could see a thick black shadow at the eastern end of the forest tracts. The whole interior of the lifeboat darkened and brightened in turns as it passed the blue rungs of the ladders. Occasionally, she saw a puff of white gas erupt from one of the cones projecting from some of the ladders’ rungs.

Novato let her eyes wander out to the horizon line—which, she realized with a start, was no longer a line at all. Instead, it was bowing up. Her heart pounded. She was seeing—actually seeing—the curvature of the world she lived on. She’d long known that the Quintaglio moon was a sphere, but she’d known it indirectly—from seeing ship’s masts poke above the horizon before the ships themselves became visible, from seeing the circular shadow her world cast on the Face of God, from experiments done measuring the angles of shadows cast at different latitudes. But to actually see the curvature, to see the world’s roundness—that was spectacular.

And then, a short time later, she became aware of something even more spectacular. It was late afternoon, the sun still well above the horizon. Nonetheless, the sky was growing darker. It had started as lavender and, without Novato really noticing it, had deepened to violet. Now it was well on its way to black. What could make the sky black while the sun was still out? A flaw in the optical properties of the lifeboat’s metal hull, perhaps? Unlikely.

Novato mulled it over while the lifeboat continued its steady climb, Fra’toolar’s coastline now visible all the way to Shoveler’s Inlet. She knew that water droplets could refract sunlight, splitting it into a rainbow of colors, and she’d long suspected that the sky was purple because myriad droplets in the air scattered light. But if no such scattering was going on, then there was no humidity in the air this high up. Well, water was heavy, of course, so moisture would tend to settle toward the ground. She was well above the clouds now—perhaps they marked the highest level at which water vapor was a constituent of air.

Later that day, Novato watched the most spectacular sunset of her life: the brilliant point of light touched the curving limb of the world, the world-spanning body of water stained purple for hundreds of kilopaces along its edge. The sun’s setting was protracted by the lifeboat’s continual upward movement, and Novato savored every moment of it.

With the sun gone, moons blazed forth in full nocturnal glory. Myriad stars became visible, too. Soon, in fact, there were more stars than Novato had ever seen before. The great sky river was thick and bright, instead of the pale ghost she was used to, and the stars were so numerous that to count them all would be the work of a lifetime. She thought of Afsan, dear Afsan, who had enjoyed no sight more than the night sky. How he would have been moved to see stars in such profusion!

But once again Novato was puzzled. Why should so many more stars be visible? And suddenly she realized something else: the stars, all those glorious stars, were rock-steady, untwinkling. From the ground, stars flickered like distant lamp flames, but these stars burned steadily. With so many visible, it was hard to get her bearings; the normal patterns of constellations were all but lost amongst the countless points of light. But at last she found bright Kevpel, the next closest planet to the sun after the Face of God. She got out her far-seer and, steadying herself by leaning back on her tail, brought it to bear on that distant world.

Spectacular. Kevpel’s rings were visible with a clarity Novato had never before experienced. The planet’s disk was clearly striped, its latitudinal cloud bands more distinct than she’d ever seen, even with bigger far-seers. And Kevpel’s own coterie of moons—why, she could count six of them, two more than she’d ever glimpsed with an instrument this size.

Had this first day of her trip up the tower taken her that much closer to Kevpel? Nonsense. Indeed, the angle between the tower’s shaft and Kevpel’s position along the ecliptic was obtuse: she was in fact slightly farther away from that planet than if she’d observed it from the ground.

But, why, then, did the heavens blaze forth with such clarity?

And then it hit her: the black daytime sky, the incredible sharpness of the stars, the lack of distortion when viewing the planets.

No air.

This high above the world there was no air.

No air!

She felt her chest constricting, her breathing becoming ragged. But that was madness: she could hear the gentle hiss of the air in the lifeboat being recirculated and replenished. She was sure that at least some of the opaque equipment she could see in the transparent hull was somehow maintaining breathable air. She tried to calm down, but it was terrifying to think that only the clear walls around her separated her from, from… emptiness.

But Novato did manage to steady herself, and as she did so her heart grew heavy. The Tak-Saleed. The Lub-Kaden. Wasted erfort. Gliders couldn’t help get her people off their doomed moon. An airship was of no more use for traversing the volume between worlds than was a sailing ship. A whole new approach would be needed.

A whole new approach.

The lifeboat continued its ascent.