The Singers of Time

6

If Kiri Quintero had been allowed the control of his own body he would have delighted in what he was doing. He was flying! After four grueling days in California, doing some sort of research for the great, golden Turtle they called Yellow Bird— his proper title was Defender of God—he was on the way home, but rest was still forbidden. Kiri was under the memo disk. He wasn't released until the big Turtle aircraft was already settling in for a landing at the Kansas City skyhook compound, and then he was too bone weary even to glance out the window at the scene beneath.

He got up wearily as the plane's doors opened, and was pushed rudely out of the way by Yellow Bird. With a hostile squawk the great Turtle shoved past him and disappeared. Kiri Quintero followed more slowly, stretching his aching limbs. It was already dark, and a hot, muggy night, with no stars in the skies. He wanted to go to bed, but he wanted even more to see his brother and the woman they loved.

He suspected he knew where he could find them both, and he was right.

As he walked along the hall toward Sue-ling's apartment he heard his brother's voice, crackling with anger, then almost drowned out by the shrill squawks of a Turtle. That was odd; Turtles rarely came into human quarters. But when he reached the door, there the Turtle was—Litlun—hard arms waving, squawking furiously at Sue-ling and Sork through his trans-poser. "Do you pretend you do not have recorded blasphemous material? You cannot, for one knows this to be true, so you must not refuse to sell it to me! Come, set a price, for one wishes to have it!"

Sue-ling put a quieting hand on Sork's shoulder and addressed the Turtle herself. "I don't know anything about blasphemous material, Facilitator," she said steadfastly.

"It is," he blared, "infuriating when a reasonable commercial offer is rejected for no reason! If you behave so badly we must reconsider whether your services will continue to be needed here."

Sue-ling shrugged. "That's up to you," she said. Then, studying him, "It might help if you told me why you want it."

"That is not your concern!"

"And it isn't your material," she pointed out.

Litlun glared wordlessly at her with both yellow eyes, his claws drumming angrily on his belly shell. Then, with a frustrated hiss, he turned and stalked violently out of the room.

Sue-ling followed him with her eyes, then shook herself. "Hello, Kiri, dear," she said belatedly.

It was a greeting, at least, and more than Kiri got from his twin. Sork, too, was gazing after the Turtle. "He really wants those astrophysics chips," he said thoughtfully.

"I see that," Sue-ling said. "But why?"

"It has to be something to do with what happened to their Mother. Maybe they think she fell into a black hole or something-"

"The whole planet?"

"Why not? It couldn't be just that one Mother died. That happens over and over, and they just let another one take over. I'll bet that they want to know more about black holes, and they think human science can tell them what to do." He grinned savagely, delighted at the thought of Turtles conceding they needed human aid. Then he added, "But if that's what really happened, I think she's gone. Nobody on the lecture chips ever said anything about a way to get out of a black hole."

Sue-ling nodded doubtfully, then was distracted by the fatigue lines on Kiri's face. "WhereVe you been?" she asked. "You look like you've been working too hard!"

"I was. Yellow Boy commandeered me," Kiri said. "We've been in California for five days, at a hospital, checking out a lot of old research material in the medical records—I think."

Sue-ling looked puzzled. "What did a Turde want with human medical records?"

Kiri spread his hands. "How can I know? I was under the disk the whole time, almost. Yellow Boy had me going through all the records of the hospital genetics department—I didn't know what I was doing, of course, but from things the Turtles were saying to each other on the way back I think that was what it had to be. And—" Kiri hesitated, always unsure of offering his intuitions to others—"I do have a theory. A guess, anyway."

"Which is?" Sue-ling demanded.

"It's only an idea—but what I think they were trying to figure out was whether there was some procedure that could recreate a female Turtle by modifying a male Turtle's genes."

"But that sort of thing is just another kind of sacrilege to them!" Sork said wonderingly.

Kiri grinned wearily. "So the Exarch told us when he found out what we were doing," he agreed. "I never saw the

Turtles so upset! They were squawking at each other on the phone like back-fence tomcats."

Sue-ling said, thinking it out as she spoke, "I don't think trying to modify a male into a functional female would work, anyway. I'm pretty sure the Turtles have never done that kind of work themselves and, although genetics isn't my field, I never heard that anybody on Earth ever managed to create a female out of male genes for any kind of animal. Maybe they really are getting desperate."

"You bet they're desperate!" Sork said with glee. "And we're not going to help them! I'm going to take the lecture chips away and hide them, in case Lidun figures some way of getting them away from you. They're human science, not Turtle, and we're going to need all the human science for ourselves!"

Kiri looked at his brother. "What are you talking about?"

Sork said, "Don't you understand? What's the life span of a Turtle?"

"How would I know? I think somebody said around seventy-five years, but—"

"But that's only a guess," Sork agreed. "All the same, we know they die some time. And in seventy-five years—maybe less!—they'll all be dead. There won't be any Turtles any more. Well, a few—as they keep coming back from rime-dilated trips, now and then. But they won't matter, and then who's going to be the dominant race in this galaxy?"

Kiri blinked at him. "You mean—us?"

"Who else?" Sork demanded. "The Turtles are going to die out. Whatever future there is in this galaxy, it belongs to us!"

Kiri stared at his brother, trying to make all these concepts fit together. "But we can't travel around the galaxy," he said reasonably. "How could we? We don't know how to operate wave-drive spaceships."

"We'll learn. Besides, some human beings can already!" Sork said triumphantly. "Francis Krake, for one, and Sue-ling had a message from him yesterday. He's driving back here right now."

"Driving?" Kiri asked, astonished.

Sue-ling shrugged. "Don't ask me why, but yes, that's what he said. I expect he'll get here tomorrow. Only—" she bit her lip—"I wish I had better news for him about his crew. The Turtles in the orbit station are all going crazy, too—they aren't really attending to business. I hope his crew's all right."

"Is something wrong with them?" Kiri asked.

Sue-ling spread her hands. "I don't know. Last time I tried I couldn't get an answer from the orbital station at all," she said, "and that has never happened before."

When Sork left them for some business of his own, Kiri Quintero lingered behind.

Sue-ling's expression was pleasantly receptive. Cheered by the look on her face, Kiri asked her, "Tonight? I've been gone a long time."

"Tonight," she said softly, "would be a very fine idea. I've missed you, too."

So placid Kiri Quintero was almost excited with the pleasure of anticipation as he strolled back toward her room a few hours later. He knew what was forthcoming. She would be wearing the yellow silk robe he had once managed to buy for her in New Hong Kong, when there on some never-to-be-clearly-known errand for the Turtles, and her sweet body would be fragrant with the Spanish scent she loved. It would be a wonderful night together—

It would not. Voices told him that when he was in the hall outside. Sue-ling was not alone, and the person with her was his twin.

A man who discovers his lover in the arms of another man has many options—tears, fury, violence; perhaps suicide, if one believes the romantic novel to represent truth. Kiri Quintero did not choose any of them. He stood there in thought for a moment, trying to listen to the words from inside—there was, after all, the chance that his twin had stopped by just for a moment, perhaps to pick up some more of his old lecture chips. But that did not seem to be the case. Although Kiri could not really make out the words from inside, he could surely hear the tone—Sue-ling protesting, Sork persuading, Sue-ling objecting, Sork insisting . . . and finally Sue-ling surrendering.

Kiri sighed, turned around and went back to his own room.

He knew that Sue-ling thought he yielded too often, and in too many ways, to his twin. Perhaps it was true.' But Kiri Quintero had always been happiest when Sork Quintero was happy, too.

All the same, he slept poorly that night. When he woke he automatically listened for the faint whisper of his brother's audio chips from the room next door, and was not surprised when he didn't hear it. No doubt Sork had chosen to stay the night.

That didn't really trouble Kiri Quintero, exactly. Though he loved Sue-ling, he was not jealous of her. Perhaps one day she would finally give up their menage a trois and settle on one of the twins. Perhaps then she would marry him. Perhaps it would be his brother she chose. Whichever happened would be right . . . and, in any case, he would go right on loving Sue-ling Quong.

Kiri rolled over on his back and gazed peacefully into the darkness of his room. Poor Sork! Where Kiri saw symmetries, congruences, interlocking relationships and resonances, Sork saw only problems. For Kiri Quintero, he always knew that every part belonged to the whole, and the whole was all of its parts. Sometimes the patterns he perceived were pleasing, but sad. Sometimes they were just pleasing. Kiri Quintero's nature was not to worry about whether the future would be good or bad, or about whether whatever was happening at any moment was right or wrong, for whatever was was.

All these things Kiri Quintero knew as certainly as he knew that his heart beat and his lungs drew breath—and that one day both heart and breath would stop and he would die—and that there was nothing in that knowledge, in any of it, to cause fear or sorrow.

If there was one thing that Kiri Quintero regretted it was that his brother did not seem to understand this self-evident law of nature. If it had been within his power he would have tried to help his brother—to share with him his own vision of the rightness of what was so. To share it with the whole world, if he could.

But it was Sork Quintero, not Kiri, who had the skill with words. Kiri's lofty peace was all internal. He had no way to share it.

Kiri hadn't known that he had at last fallen asleep until he heard his brother pounding on his door. "Kiri? Wake up, it's morning. Sue-ling just got a call from that space captain. He's in the compound, and he's brought somebody with him."

Kiri sat up, still groggy. "Who?"

"I don't know that yet, do I?" his twin snapped pettishly. "That's what I'm going to find out. I'm going over to meet them at the western gate. Come after me when you're awake, all right?"

"All right," said Kiri, yawning. Somehow the brief discontent of the night before had gone away, as it always did with Kiri Quintero. He stretched placidly and then, comfortably, not at all rushed, rolled out of his bed and headed for the sanitary. There was no reason for haste, after all. Whatever was there would still be there when he got there.

It was still early morning when he strolled out toward the gate, and turning out to be a sultry, lowering day—the kind that all Turtles despised. Few of them were in sight. Few of anybody were in sight. The bustling compound at the base of the space ladder had turned into a ghost town. The long trains of scrap metal were motionless and abandoned, and there was an eerie silence where for so long there had been the drumming bustle of Turtle trade.

As Kiri approached the gate he caught a glimpse of a group of people gathered around a three-wheeled surface vehicle. One of the group was his brother, all right, along with that captain from space. With them was a human female, but it was not Sue-ling Quong. She was a young girl Kiri had never seen before and standing behind her, looming over her, was, yes, a Taur. Not just a Taur, but a male, with developed horns. Kiri blinked and started toward them, but as he turned in their direction a Turtle stepped out from behind a halted freight car to challenge him. Kiri was surprised to see that it was the rusty brown pigmy called Lidun, evidently lurking there to look at the humans.

One of Litlun's eyes turned to Kiri, and the Turtle in-standy activated his transposes "Stop there, Quintero! Which are you?"

"I'm Kiri Quintero, Facilitator. Not," he was careful to explain, "my brother, Sork, who is the one you believe to possess some disapproved recorded lectures."

The Turtle rolled his yellow eyes at him. "One does not speak of such record chips," he said, like a reproving teacher. "Their possessor does not wish to sell, and they are not of importance. One cannot concern oneself with commercial matters at this time."

Kiri's eyes almost popped. Litlun couldn't concern himself with trade? A Turtle couldn't? So it was all true!

But the Turtle was still speaking. Litlun gestured toward the group at the gate. "Is that creature not an adult male Taur?" he asked.

"Oh, I don't think so," Kiri said automatically. "Not an adult because, look, he still has his horns—" Then he took a better look. "Well, he does look different from most of the others," he admitted.

"One may have a use for such a Taur. Go and find out, please," rapped the Turtle, and turned back to the shelter of the motionless car.

Kiri's calm was threatened at last by surprise—not least because, for the first time in his memory, he had heard a Turde say "please" to a human being. But the real surprise came when he got closer. The great bull-headed creature standing by the three-wheeled surface car was fully horned, and even in the light of morning Kiri saw that the horns were faintly glowing.

His twin turned to him. "You took your time," he said accusingly. "Look, you stay here with this girl and her Taur— don't let anybody bother them."

"Who would bother them?" Kiri asked reasonably. "Where's Sue-ling?"

"Back at her office, of course," Sork snapped. "That's where Krake and I are going, to see if she can get any news of his crew. Oh, don't argue with me now, Kiri," Sork went on as his brother opened his mouth. "We're in a hurry!" And the two of them left, leaving Kiri face to face with the young woman and the Taur bull.

The girl was studying his face. "You two look a lot alike," she said, discovering. "Are you brothers?"

"Twins," Kiri told her. "My name is Kiri Quintero."

"I'm Moon Bunderan," the girl said, extending her hand. "This is my friend, Thrayl. He can shake hands with you, too, if you like."

"Of course," said Kiri, though his tone was more uncertain than his words. But when the Taur reached down and took

Kiri's hand in his own hard, three-fingered fist, the skin was warm, the pressure friendly. "Nice to meet you," Kiri said, looking up at the huge-eyed, massive, horned head. The horns really did glow with a light of their own.

Then the Taur spoke. It was a hissing, buzzing sound that Kiri could not understand at all. "I don't speak Taur," he said apologetically—apologizing to an animal!

"He only said that he thinks your smallsongs are good and that he hopes your horns grow strong," the girl translated. "It's kind of what Taurs say, like—well, like 'Nice to meet you,' I guess." She sat suddenly on the hood of the car. "I'm sorry," she went on. "I'm really tired. We've been driving for days—all the way from New Mexico. And it was kind of—"

She hesitated, looking into Kiri's eyes as though wondering whether to trust him with a secret. Evidendy she decided she could, for she finished, "Kind of scary. Because we were hiding, really. You know, a lot of people are afraid of grownup male Taurs, and some of them mightVe wanted to hurt Thrayl."

The bull Taur suddenly blared a sort of muted roar and danced around, lowering the huge head, the horns pointed back toward the place Kiri had come from. "Oh, Lord," Moon Bunderan breathed in excitement. "Look at that, Mr. Quintero! Isn't that a Turtle?"

Kiri looked around. Litlun had drawn closer, his frill quivering as both yellow eyes were fastened on them. "Why, yes. His name's—well, we call him Litlun. Because he's smaller than the rest of them, you know."

"He's smaller? Then the others must be as big as Taurs! And he looks excited about something."

It was true that Litlun was waving his boneless upper limbs and cawing to himself as he came. The Turtle turned one eye on Kiri Quintero. "Well?" he demanded through the trans-poser. "Is it not true? Isn't it indeed an adult male Taur?"

The young woman shrank back. "Oh, don't let him hurt

Thrayl! He's only just becoming mature. He's not dangerous at all!"

But Litlun wasn't listening. He ignored Kiri Quintero, barely glanced at the young woman with one eye in passing. All the Turtle's attention was focused on the Taur. Litlun stopped dead in front of him, both eyes now firmly fixed on Thrayl's horns. One of the Turtle's boneless arms reached out to touch a horn.

Thrayl pulled back. There was a warning rumble from the Taur, and the horns seemed to brighten with a reddish light.

"Please, Mr. Quintero," the girl said worriedly. "That Turtle is bothering Thrayl—he's not used to having anyone touch his horns. Except me, of course."

The Turtle spun around and glared at her. He barked something, but he was speaking so rapidly that even the trans-poser did not make him comprehensible to her. "What's he saying?" the girl said, backing uneasily away.

Kiri frowned in surprise. "He—he wants to buy your Taur. He asks how much you want for him."

"Oh, no!" the girl cried. "I won't sell Thrayl! That's why he and I are running— That's out of the question," she said firmly. "Tell him. Say thank you, but Thrayl isn't for sale."

Kiri didn't have to translate, because Litlun got the message. The yellow eyes blazed angrily as the Turtle boomed away again, this time more slowly. "One will pay anything you ask," he squawked. "One wishes to have this adult male Taur."

"No! Please make him understand. I don't want Thrayl dehorned, turned into meat—or breeding stock, either."

A rumble from the Turtle. "One will not physically harm the animal in any way."

"I don't believe you!" Moon Bunderan said fiercely.

Kiri cut in. "Well," he said reasonably, "I've never known a Turtle to lie, or break his word. They're honest traders, Miss. If he makes a deal he'll keep to it."

"No. Thrayl and I are going with Captain Krake in his ship, and that's the way it's going to be!"

The Turtle hissed furiously, the eyes wandering in all directions. Litlun opened his parrot-beak mouth to speak, then changed his mind. He closed it with a snap and stormed away.

Moon Bunderan gazed fearfully after him. "What's he going to do?"

Kiri shook his head. "I never saw him so excited. I don't know, Miss Bunderan. They are acting pretty strange these days—why, just last night he was trying to buy some old recorded Earth lectures from Sue-ling Quong." He felt an unhappy sense of confusion—unusual for Kiri; but there were suddenly all these strange bits of data that must fit together somehow—but how?

The girl put her hand on his shoulder, looking up at him. "Will he try to take him away from me?"

"Oh, no," Kiri said in surprise. "No, he won't do that. The Turtles never take anything. It's all fair and square commerce with them. But," he added seriously, "I'm afraid it looks as though Litlun really wants your Taur. And the Turtles generally find a way to get what they want."

To the third song of the Earth poet the aiodoi listened with compassion and perhaps even pride, for error was giving way to understanding, and the song began to ring beautifully as it went on.

"For the last time I remind you that our division of universal history into three eras, like the divisions of human history, is really only an analogy. But it's a good one, I think, and now we will come to the important part.

"It's time for us to say what we know about the universe's prehistory.

"As with the prehistory of the human race, from the first African Eve—or whoever it was—to the beginnings of history, or at least of legend, the prehistoric part is far the most important. For human affairs, that prehistory lasted for hundreds of

thousands of years. The prehistory of the universe is a lot shorter. All the same, it is the most important part.

"Still, it won't take much time to tell it, for what we know about the Planck Era—that is, the first ten to the minus-47th seconds after the Big Bang, which we will call the prehistory of the universe—is, basically, nothing.

"That doesn't stop us from needing to know. It only makes it impossible for that need ever to be satisfied. We can't see back past the Planck barrier. Maybe nobody ever will. We don't know the detail of events.

"What we do know is that somewhere in Planck time—or maybe some of it happened in the GUT time which was the beginning of the Ancient History, we can't really be sure—all the rules for our universe were set.

"That is to say, all the Svave functions' (as you might call them) were 'collapsed' into exact, hard numbers. Values which could have been almost any value at all suddenly became fixed values. That was when, for instance, it was 'decided' that pi would then and forevermore equal three-point-etcetera instead of, maybe, seven or some other number; when Planck's constant and the fine-structure constant and all the others became rigid facts instead of some possible other values.

"From that point on, everything else was pretty much decided.

"You might say the program for our universe was written then; everything since then has just been the running of the computer. If we could somehow catch a glimpse of that primordial computer program we would understand a lot of things that are now shrouded in doubt ..."

"But we can't, and perhaps we never will."

And the aiodoi sang on tenderly and with compassion, and the song they sang was of hope.