Remnant Population

CHAPTER TWENTY

Ofelia did not know herself exactly what Bluecloak had planned in the way of demonstrations. What she saw — what they all saw — exceeded anything she had imagined. One of the babies, perched on Gurgle click-cough’s lap, poked at the controls of a classroom computer. On the display, colored patterns swirled. Two of the adults were hunched over a couple of gourds, fiddling with wires that connected to… Ofelia blinked… they had connected half the rooms electrical demonstrations to their gourds. The other two babies played on the floor with models of gears and screws, constructing something intricate. Ofelia wondered what it was, and if it would work when it was done. “Oh… my… God.” That was Likisi; Ofelia had not suspected him of any religious beliefs. “They’re — they’re using a computer?” Bluecloak came forward; he had shut the door behind them, silently. “Iss dun.” “But how did he learn — did you teach them? After we warned you?” Likisi glared at Ofelia. Bluecloak stepped between them forcing a confrontation.

“Huhooaht hooeee sssee, hooeee aaak.” Bluecloak said, waving its arm to encompass everything in the room.

“It means,” Bilong said to Likisi, “what we see, we make. They do, I mean. He says they can make anything they’ve seen. They can’t really, but—” “Aaakss zzzzt!” Bluecloak said, and spoke in his own language to the creatures with the gourds. Ofelia held her breath. She could hardly believe it would work again; it had seemed too much like magic the first time.

The lights went out, and before the startled humans could exclaim, a string of smaller bulbs flared in the center of the room. The room lights came back on, and the one beside the gourds puffed its throat-sac twice at the humans, then moved a switch and the little lights went off.

“That’s impossible!” Likisi said. “They’ve used an extension cord — a hidden battery—”

“The battery is the gourds,” Ofelia said. Bluecloak had explained it to her. “They brew some stuff that

works like the acid in a liquid battery—”

“They can’t do that — there’s no way—”

“It could be.” Kira went over to look. “If they’ve come up with an acid—” “They make explosives, you know,” Ofelia said. “That shuttle—” “Zzzzt inn ssky,” Bluecloak said. “Sssane zzzzt inn ires, aaakss lahtt, aaakss kuhll, aaakss tuurn…” “You told them!” Likisi rounded on Ofelia. “You had to tell them this; they couldn’t have figured it out. They don’t even have a government — !”

“Government and science aren’t mutually necessary,” Ori said dryly. He looked more amused than alarmed now, and clearly he enjoyed Likisi’s distress. “Frankly I don’t think Sera Falfurrias has the background to set up this demonstration.” He turned to Ofelia. “Tell me, Sera, what kind of ‘brew’ would it take to generate electricity chemically — do you know?”

“Batteries use acid,” she said. “Its dangerous, and it makes fumes.”

“Yes. As I thought. And I suspect, Vasil, if we analyze what the indigenes have in their flasks, it will not be the same as the acid Sera Falfurrias may have seen in batteries. As I’ve tried to tell you several times since we came, these indigenes are quite unlike other cultures I’ve studied.” “Well, they’re aliens!” Likisi said. “Of course they’re different.”

“Excuse me.” Ori turned away from Likisi and went over to Kira. “Have you any idea what’s in there?” “This plant — I have no idea what it is, or where they got it—” She held out a handful of leaves and some orange-red globes smaller than plums. “I have no idea how they make the liquid from it—” “It doesn’t matter how they do it,” Likisi said. “It only matters that they’re aliens, and they didn’t have electricity when they met up with Grandma here, and now they do. It’s her fault—” Ofelia flinched away as he loomed over her; perhaps he didn’t mean to hit her, but she knew that tone, that attitude. Then long, hard fingers closed around his arms, and two of the People held him… not so much still, as unable to break free. The other humans froze, staring, then their eyes slid to Ofelia’s face. “Bluecloak is the singer for most of the nest-guardians of the hunting tribes,” Ofelia said, ignoring Likisi’s struggles and the others’ expressions. She hoped she was using the right human words for the concepts Bluecloak had conveyed so carefully. “Singers are not ‘entertainers’—” That with a pointed look at Ori. “Singers make contact between the nest-guardians who want to make agreements about nesting places or hunting range; they are what we would call diplomats. Nest-guardians are the only ones who can make agreements binding on the People.”

“The… rulers?” Ori asked. Give him credit; he was more curious to know the truth than annoyed that he had been wrong.

“No. Not rulers… exactly. They are in charge of the young — from the nest to the stage where they begin roaming with the People — and so they are the ones who decide what is important, what must be taught, what agreements must be kept.”

“I don’t see how that works,” Kira said, frowning. “If they stay behind, at the nests with the babies, how can they know what the others decide?”

Ofelia had no idea how they knew, or if they knew. She went on as if Kira had not interrupted. “Bluecloak came when the first ones here reported that I was the same kind of animal as those they’d killed, but also different. Because I am old, and have had children, and because I stayed behind when my people left, they think of me as a nest-guardian for humans. For my humans.”

“I suppose that’s reasonable,” Ori said. “In their terms, anyway… they had to fit you into some category.”

“And now I’m a nest-guardian for them as well,” Ofelia said.

“What? How?”

“When these babies were born, I was there; they accept me as click-kaw-keerrr—” At this, the babies all looked at Ofelia and squeaked; the ones on the floor ran to her and leaned against her legs. She squatted slowly, her knees creaking, and they grasped her hands. She felt the now-familiar touch of their tongues on her wrist.

“Imprinting… chemotaxis…” Kira said softly. “They’ve imprinted on her.”

“Which is why I can’t leave,” Ofelia said. “I’m their click-kaw-keerrr, the only one they have. Ordinarily,

they’d have had several, but it’s too late for them to get another—”

“But these others could have—” began Kira. Ofelia shook her head,

“No. Only the mothers past nesting can become nest-guardians; no one else. I was the only one available, and they asked me… I agreed. Who wouldn’t want to care for these — ?” She smiled down at the big-eyed babies who looked back at her with the trust and eagerness she remembered so well from her own children. She would do better by these, she promised herself. And them. She looked over at Likisi, red-faced and sweating; though he no longer struggled, every line of his body expressed resentment and anger.

“I’m sorry, Ser Likisi, for your embarrassment, but you see I had to tell you this, convince you. I cannot leave, even if I wanted to leave, and I don’t. These babies need me; I’m the only one who can do for them what the click-kaw-keerrr must do.”

“They’re aliens ,” he said hoarsely. “You can’t do whatever it is — you’re only an ignorant, interfering old woman.”

The ones holding him expanded their throat sacs and throbbed. Likisi paled; Ofelia could see the sweat break out on his face.

“They respect and trust nest-guardians, Ser Likisi,” Ofelia said. “They do not like those who don’t.”

“But—”

“Be quiet, man,” Ori said. “You’re messing this up.” He sat down where he was, by the tangle of wires and little bulbs, then looked at Ofelia. “Please go on.” Likisi said nothing; Ofelia felt the shift of power within the team, and hoped it was final.

Her knees hurt too much to keep squatting like this; she sat down, and the babies crawled into her lap. “What they said — what Bluecloak told me — is that they accept me as the nest-guardian for them as well as for humans. That means I’m the one who can make the agreements. But I have to stay here.” “I suppose that makes sense,” Ori said. He didn’t even glance at Likisi. “We can explain it to you, and you can explain it to them…” He still did not understand. Ofelia hoped he would stay this calm when he did understand it, “I’m sorry, Ser, but it goes the other way. They explain it to me, and I explain it to you.” “Yes, of course… but I meant the terms of the agreement.”

“So did they,” said Ofelia. He stared at her a long moment, his face expressionless as he worked it out.

“The… terms of… their agreement.”

“Yes, Ser.” She tried to sound unthreatening.

“I… see.” Ori looked up at the other three, who were still standing, Likisi still held by two of the People. “I think we need to go talk about this. With all respect, Sera Falfurrias, without you. You are too… involved… to have a completely open mind.”

“Nnno.” That was Bluecloak, who had let Ofelia carry the basket this far. “Don’t be silly,” Kira said, heading for the door. No one stopped her She grabbed the handle and pulled, but it didn’t open.

“Its locked,” Ofelia said, unnecessarily. She felt a wicked glee at the look on Kira’s face. Had the women she thought bad felt this way? She had seen such looks as she felt inside on others’ faces, “So is the main door. You will have to discuss it here.”

Their hands reached for pockets, for belts, and only then did they remember that they had not brought their working tools, their handcomps and shirtcoms, to a quiet dinner in the small house of an ignorant old woman who could after all do them no harm.

Power, Ofelia realized, could indeed beget wickedness; her old voice scolded her soundly for the laughter that wanted to break out as she saw their expressions shift, and shift again. “No harm will come to you,” Ofelia said. “But you will have to listen, and you will have to make up your mind to what is necessary.”

“Do you know what they want?” Ori asked. Practical, that one, and still calm. She hoped he would stay, later.

“They want to learn,” Ofelia said. “It is their greatest joy.” She pushed the babies in her lap gently, and Gurgle-click-cough murmured to them. They tumbled out onto the floor, and skittered over to their abandoned creation. “Watch them,” she said.

“Rready,” said Bluecloak, and one of the People picked up the contraption and set it on a display table. The babies squeaked; Ofelia could not quite distinguish the words, but by the way the elders were listening, they were making sense. The adult picked the thing up again and put it into the schoolroom’s deep sink. Bluecloak offered Ofelia an arm, and helped her up so that she could see. More urgent squeaks from the floor, and Bluecloak picked up all three babies; one scampered up its arm to the shoulder. Another reached out to Ofelia, who took it and cradled it.

When the adult turned the water on, and adjusted the faucet, everyone could see that the babies had contrived a water-driven machine that turned geared wheels faster and faster… “Zzzzt!” cried a tiny voice. “Aaaaksss zzzzt!”

“Impossible,” breathed Likisi, but this time with no anger in his voice, only awe. “Let me go,” he said to those holding his arms. “I want to see…” They let go at once, and he walked over to the sink, peering in. “They can’t — there’s not a water-driven generator for light-years in any direction… and yet… this might actually work,” He put out a finger, drew it back.

“Do you want them for friends, for nest-guardians, or as enemies?” Ofelia asked. She still didn’t understand the thing the babies had built, although if they said it would make electricity, she believed them. “If you try to stifle them — you can’t do it, you can only make them angry. That’s your choice.” “But its too fast — they’re so… so smart…” Likisi looked around at the adults, then at the babies, then at her.

Ofelia tried not to sound impatient. “The choice is between smart and friendly, or smart and angry. They believe that good nest-guardians — good teachers, good friends — help the young ones grow and learn… everything.”

“I wonder what their Varinge score would be,” Likisi said, with envy in every syllable. “Higher than ours,” Kira said. “We’ll need larger samples, but if this group’s representative, then their population mean is a good twenty points above human. And they’ve had these textbooks, these computer manuals… their development’s already explosive, and with this — I’d say starflight in less than a hundred years. Without our help.”

“And aggressive in defense of nesting territory,” Ori added. “Aiee. It’s scary.” He didn’t sound that scared; he sounded eager.

Ofelia stroked the baby’s knobbly back. “Not that scary, Ser… here…” She held out the baby. They had discussed this; Ori had been the gentlest of the humans on the team, when trying to observe and interact with the People, and the People thought he should be given a chance to hold a baby. Ofelia still thought it wasn’t safe, but… but it was hard to fear and hate anyone whose baby you had cuddled. Now Ori stared at her… then reached out gingerly. The baby went into his hands eagerly — a chance for something new — and licked his wrist. Then it looked back at Ofelia and squeaked. Not the same flavor — she didn’t need to hear all the sounds to know that’s what it meant. It focussed those remarkable eyes on Ori’s face, and stretched up to lick his chin. His expression softened, and Ofelia relaxed. Kira grinned, a wide natural smile of pleasure; so did Bilong.

In that moment when everyone else relaxed, Likisi grabbed. Not the baby in Ori’s arms, but the one on Bluecloak’s shoulders, when Bluecloak turned to watch Ori. The baby hissed, and clawed at Likisi’s wrist, but he had it by the neck, and the baby was choking.

Ofelia lunged at him, but he pushed her away easily and backed to the door. “They have tails,” he snarled. “Trained animals — smart lizards — I can’t believe you’re falling for this. A whole rich world, for a lot of little scaly lizards and a crazy old woman who wants to rule it? I don’t think so.” The baby writhed, the stripes fading, the eyes dulling. “Don’t come closer, or I’ll wring its filthy neck.” For a breathless instant no one moved. Then he pointed at Ofelia with his free hand. “You. Crawl over here and get this door open… don’t tell me you don’t know the lock-code. Don’t stand up — crawl. Or this baby’s dead.”

Ofelia looked at Bluecloak, at the other humans, at Gurgle-click-cough, and finally at Likisi and the small creature writhing in his grasp. Slowly — her joints would not have it any other way — she lowered herself to the floor and started crawling toward him.

“That’s better,” he said. “It’s people like you who cause all the trouble anyway… they should never have taught you to read.”

Let him talk, the new voice said, coming out of its hiding, When he is talking, he is not listening. Or thinking. It was hard enough to crawl; she hadn’t crawled in years, what with her knees and her hip, and now her shoulders added to the pains, “Faster!” Likisi said, but anyone could see that an old woman couldn’t crawl very fast at the best of times, and this old woman was clumsier than most. She glanced up to apologize, and saw his foot drawn back to kick, kicking… and Ofelia grabbed his foot and yanked. She was not strong enough to pull him over, but in that shift of weight he loosened his grip on the baby, which squirmed around and sank its small but very sharp teeth into the skin between his thumb and fingers, at the same moment its long sharp toes got a purchase on his arm, and raked hard. “OW!” he yelled, reflex opening his hand; the baby dropped away with a triumphant squeak, and four blurs past Ofelia’s head became four long knives in Likisi’s body. She crouched there for an unknowable time while others moved around her, and Likisi’s pain ended in a quick slice of his throat. Then it was softness and warmth, and friendly voices, someone carrying her back to her own house, her own bed, the smell of the food she had cooked… She was in her own bed, wrapped in a blanket, with the babies — all three of them — curled along her side. Bluecloak stood at the left side of the bed; the humans — Kira and Ori pale but calm, Bilong sobbing — stood at the foot of the bed, and the other People crowded behind them. She did not know how long it had been, or what else had happened; the smell of Likisi’s death pinched her nose, Gurgle-click-cough brought her a glass of cold water; she sipped it and the confusion in her mind settled back into recognizable shapes. She was safe. The babies were safe. Everyone was safe but Likisi, and he had been the only one to threaten the children.

If anyone had to die, that was the right one.

Before the armed men took alarm — long before midnight, that is — Ori had agreed to accept reality; he and Kira went back to explain what had happened (Likisi had “gone ballistic” and threatened one of the babies and Ofelia; the creatures had naturally defended them), Bilong played the role of grieving lover almost too well; Ofelia began to wonder if she really believed all she said about Likisi, if those sobs were genuine.

By the time the advisors appeared, armed and dangerous, the apparatus had all been tidied away. Likisi’s body, Ofelia supposed, still sprawled in its blood on the schoolroom floor, but she didn’t have to see it. The advisors could see her bruises, and the marks on the baby’s throat; they could see that Ori was well satisfied with what had happened.

“Idiot,” one of them said, in the front room of Ofelia’s house, where they came to interview the team members. Not that they had any authority to do so, Kira muttered to Ofelia, while waiting her turn. Likisi had had the civilian authority, and now it passed to her, as assistant team leader, but it was as well not to upset them. “Idiot,” the man went on. It was the loud one. “Old Bossyboots never did have the sense—” “May I touch one?” Kira asked, her face gentler now as she peered at the sleeping babies. “Yes,” Ofelia said. “They like to be stroked here—” She demonstrated; Kira copied her, and the baby opened bright eyes, swiped Kira’s hand with its tongue, and went back to sleep. “Cute is the wrong word,” Kira said.

“But—”

“There isn’t a word,” Ofelia said, “because they’re not human. They need their own words.”

“Bilong—”

“Bilong,” Ofelia said, more tartly than she meant, “is a fool. She may or may not know anything in her own field, but in person—” Kira grinned down at her. “I thought a woman like you would like someone like her better… she’s more traditional…” “Go read my log notes on Linda,” Ofelia said. The baby had liked Kira; she would not have chosen her, but the baby had. So she might as well learn to like Kira herself. Kira was smarter than Rosara; maybe she could be retrained into a reasonable sort of daughter, “And do not miss your chance when Bilong quits making such a loud noise about Likisi and notices that Ori is still here.”

Kira flushed. “What do you mean? I’m not—”

Ofelia stopped her with a look. “I am an old woman, but I am not stupid, or a fool. You like this Ori—” “Well, yes, but not like that—” “He wants to stay. You will stay. You will like him enough to become a mother. You already do; its why you hate Bilong.” Wicked, wicked glee, to see that strong-minded woman’s jaw drop as if she’d been hit with a brick. Wicked pleasure bubbling in her veins to see that woman discover that she had been seen, that her mind had been as naked to an old woman’s knowledge of human nature as the old woman’s body had been to her external eye.

Ofelia lay back, watching Kira through the hedge of her eyelashes. “You will call me Sera Ofelia,” she said. “You will help me with these babies, and the next, and you will have a click-kaw-keerrr for your own.”

“But — but—” She did not look so formidable when she sputtered like that, but she did look beautiful with the color of outrage on her cheeks.

“Good night,” Ofelia said, and shut her eyes. After awhile, she felt the mattress shift as Kira stood up, heard the whispers on the far side of the room. The babies squirmed contentedly all along her body, and she went to sleep.

The formal duties of nest-guardianship lay lightly on Ofelia; she spent the early mornings in her garden, with the babies scampering around beneath the great frilled leaves of squash vines grabbing slimerods, Later in the morning, she took them over to the center, where they joined the elders in the schoolroom. Unlike the People’s own nest-guardians, she had help from other elders; they understood that she alone could not keep up with three active babies. When she needed a nap, someone was always there… and sometimes that someone was Kira or Ori, who had both elected to stay as her human assistants. If it was not quite as free a life as her solitary existence, it was in other ways more satisfying. What she had least liked about community life had vanished. No one told her what to do; no one told her she didn’t matter. Even the old voice finally died away, frustrated by her lack of response. She still got a wicked thrill from speaking into the special communications link that carried her voice (she was told) instantly to the government buildings back on the world she had not thought of as home for decades. Back there, where she had been born, and lived, in the obscurity of a crowded inner city tenement, back where she had been told what she could not learn, the men who made laws listened to her. They could not even tell her to be quiet, because the link was only one way at a time. First she would give her report, and days later a batch transmission would come back for her. She let Kira and Ori listen to it first. They felt more important, and she felt sheltered a little from the tone of the first transmissions, before they realized they had no possible way to control her. They were past panic then, enjoying each other too much, enjoying the company of the bright, endlessly curious People who came to visit.

Profile, The Journal of Political Science.

The human ambassador to the first nonhuman intelligence encountered in Man’s inexorable advance across the stars is a short, gray-haired, barefooted old woman without a single qualification for the position… except that the aliens like her. Born Ofelia Damareux, in the working-class neighborhood of South Rock, Porter City, on Esclanz, Sera Ofelia Falfurrias now holds the most prestigious — and some say the most perilous — diplomatic post in the history of mankind. What kind of government would put an amateur — no, not even an amateur, a complete nonentity — in this post? To answer that question, we interviewed the Director of Colonial Affairs. “In my opinion,” Ser Andreys Valpraiz said, “it was a major blunder. My predecessor, appointed by the previous administration, lacked the decisiveness to intervene in what was, admittedly, a confusing situation in which the designated contact had apparently become mentally unbalanced and died following an attempt to assault one of the native species. I inherited this mess. At least I have ensured the proper replacement for Sera Falfurrias, a professional with the right credentials, with a clear understanding of the needs of both peoples. We’ll have no more of this sentimental ‘nest guardian’ nonsense when the next ambassador is appointed… and of course Sera Falfurrias is quite elderly…” Charlotte Gathers peered at the thick silvery envelope suspiciously. “Silver Century Tours announces a Free Vacation Prize Package for senior ladies.” She opened it, to find an application for the prize drawing. She was old enough, yes, and she had children and grandchildren. Was she willing to take a long voyage? Yes, after that last miserable holiday week at the coast, when her daughters made it clear just how much they resented having to pay for the two-bedroom apartment. They were so selfish — and after all she’d done for them! Possibilities for emigration? She checked the “yes” box. Maybe things would be better on the outer worlds. She had seen something on a news show about a planet where a little old lady was the ambassador. For a moment she imagined herself as an ambassador to an alien race, but on the whole she didn’t like odd smells and funny accents. Perhaps not an ambassador, but an ambassador’s friend… someone to lunch with, to play cards with… if she could just get away to someplace exotic, and show her daughters that she didn’t need them.

Charlotte Gathers did not pass the screening for nest-guardian: one look at her sour face and beady eyes, and the polite young woman told her she had won the minor prize of a week at White Spring Resort. Others made it past the receptionist to the real screening committee, and some of these emigrated to become nest-guardians, their passage paid by profits on the inventions of a very inventive People. Slowly, the village filled again. Now people lived in more than half the cottages. Gray-and-white haired nest-guardians with striped nestlings, pale nest-guardians of the People with the slower-growing children of the humans who had moved here — Kira and Ori’s children, for instance, who had learned the People’s language from birth. Most mornings Ofelia woke to the sound of voices in the lane, People and human both. She had begun sleeping later, these last few years; she rarely saw sunrise these days. Gurgle-clickcough’s first nesting had grown out of their bold stripes, and into the hunting pattern; they were no longer her responsibility. She had been intrigued to find that their tails and the loud stripes disappeared at the same rate. As with humans, they were least appealing in an awkward intermediate stage, when their tails were stubby stumps no longer capable of twining around things, and their stripes looked faded and dingy. One of them hunted ideas more than game; it had helped build the first flying machine designed by the People. Ofelia heard that all the cities on the stone coast had electricity now, and even the nomadic tribes had small computers running off batteries whose fuel was now being grown for that purpose. She didn’t understand most of it; she spent more time dozing, and less time teaching. She wasn’t worried. She did sometimes wonder which version of her life Barto and Rosara would hear when they wakened from cryo thirty years hence, far away. Would they be told she’d died in transit… or would they know she had stayed behind and become famous? It was a good joke either way, and while she did not, as she had once planned, die alone, she did die smiling.

The End