Barsk (42 page)

“What matters is you're here, where you all intended to be. Let what happened at the camp go. None of that matters.”

“I think we'll hold on to one piece of it,” said Tarva, his trunk entwined with Abso's, who nodded in response.

“Thank you, Jorl. I'd compose a poem in your honor, but I've left that life behind.”

“What happens next?” asked Jorl.

Almost as one, the two hundred sixteen summoned Fant looked at him with surprise.

“How can you not know?” said Rüsul. “It's part of the dream.”

Jorl shrugged. “I never had the dream. I … found this place by other means. Beyond bringing you here, I haven't a clue.”

“You oaf,” said Kembü, though not unkindly. “We walk up the beach and into the trees.”

“That's all?”

Phas nodded. Others were already moving toward the trees. “You're a good historian, Jorl, but this isn't something for you to record or witness. You can't go with us.”

“I understand.”

She turned away and took Rüsul's hand in hers. “Walk with me?” The carver nodded, glancing once over his shoulder at Jorl, and then together they joined the rest of the Fant walking up the beach and into the trees.” As they reached the limits of the landscape he'd crafted, he released the constructs of each of the Dying, laying them to rest at last.

Jorl let his awareness return to the real world where Pizlo still played at the ocean's edge. He glanced up the beach to the tree line where in the other world the Fant had vanished. A trick of the light or perhaps his own wishful imagination made him think he saw movement there, several Fant watching him from the shadowy safety of the trees. He knew better.

“Ready to go home, Pizlo?”

 

EPILOGUE

PROPER GOODBYES

JORL
had come back to Keslo four days earlier. That same afternoon he'd returned the borrowed boat, sent payment to Suliv's shop for the goods Pizlo had
acquired,
and sent the boy off to let his mother know he was fine and his hands would heal. Only then did he return to his simple apartment where he carefully locked the doors and shuttered the windows against the outside world. He turned away callers and ignored requests from concerned friends and siblings. Instead, he hung in his study's work hammock and brooded.

Now and then he moved about the house to satisfy the intake and output needs of his body, but he always returned to his study. He neither read nor wrote, and the idea of doing any sort of Speaking lay further from his mind than the outermost colonies.

On the morning of his fifth day back, he noticed a crumpled scrap of brown paper on the floor. He stared at it, knowing he was not so far gone that he could have failed to mark its appearance earlier; the paper had
not
been there all along. He checked his doors, both the main entrance and the seldom used back door that led down to a community compost bin. Both remained locked from the inside.

Returning to his study he discovered one of the windows' shutters had been dislodged and lay open a crack. Nodding to himself he at last examined the brown page. The paper had once wrapped a parcel of some sort before being repurposed. It was quite worn, variously stained, and had been folded so often it appeared fractured and had become as supple as cloth. As he scanned the tight circles of the glyphs Jorl recognized Pizlo's style. He found himself smiling, and in that simple act returned to himself from wherever he had been for the past days. The paper was an invitation.

The pleasure of your company is requested next year, on the seventeenth day of the season of dark, at the westernmost edge of the island of Phran, just before dawn, when Wella will appear to share his wisdom.

P.S. Bring lunch for us both.

Shrugging off his melancholy, Jorl opened the windows of his study. He seated himself in his hammock again, but this time went to work. By late afternoon he had completed an overdue monograph. He sealed it in a large envelope and set it on the edge of his desk to remind him to drop it off the next morning. Then he pinned Pizlo's invitation on the wall over his desk, and headed out the door toward Tolta's home.

As he walked through the dusk of the Civilized Wood, Jorl spun himself through the rituals of a summoning. He didn't need to do so, but the familiarity set him at ease. He'd never tried to Speak while walking before, but the trick lay well within the range of his talents now, just as it was simplicity itself to hold the nefshons of his conversant in his mind, all but fully formed, like a word waiting to be spoken.

Jorl let himself into the house and paused in the greeting room. It was one thing to presume to step over the threshold without an invitation, and quite another to breach the inner house unannounced.

“Tolta? Are you at home?” He already knew the answer. An alluring aroma came from the kitchen where someone had prepared a fragrant vegetable stew and set it aside to cool. The sound of running water and the clunk of a pot suggested the post-cooking cleaning had begun. He called her name again. The sound of water stopped, an instant later Tolta bolted into the room.

Jorl froze. Looking at her, he realized that she would surely have been among those who had come to his home in the days since his return and been turned away with silence. And he knew he must have hurt her.

“Oh, Jorl, Pizlo told me—”

“Tolta, I'm so sorry. I've not been myself these last few days. I'm … I'm sorry.”

She rushed across the room and hugged him tighter than he'd ever been hugged. “Don't you try leaving again. You've no cause for it. You belong here, among the friends who love you.”

She embraced him for a long while, but then, too, he had to admit that he held onto her as well. He'd seen so much, and been altered by it, but that contact assured him he would be all right. When she stepped back, he held onto her hands and gazed deeply into her eyes. He saw the same face, the same Tolta, that he had seen when he stood Second at her and Arlo's wedding. Nothing important had changed.

“I've brought you a gift,” he whispered. “I hope you like it.”

Jorl closed his eyes. He concentrated on the nefshons he'd already gathered and set to one side of his awareness, and then began anew with a second summoning. When he opened his eyes again it was to a mindscape of the same room in the house, and with barely a blink of effort he pulled enough of Tolta's nefshons together to create a construct of her there.

From her perspective, nothing would have changed. She stood in front of Jorl in the real world greeting room of her home, and her awareness occupied an identical place that existed only in his mind.

He shifted his focus for an instant, pulled the other construct into existence in another corner of his mind, little more than an empty plane of light. Arlo took shape and stood before him there.

“I didn't think I'd see you again. What happened—”

“This is the last time I'll call you, my friend. Everything worked out, but I thought you needed some closure. A chance to say a proper goodbye.”

He gave a final push, and Arlo's construct slipped from one venue to the other, materializing in the illusion of Tolta's home in the very spot where he had been standing, his own construct fading away as his friend appeared. He heard Tolta gasp as she held her husband's hands again.

“Hello, Tol,” Arlo breathed, “I love you, you know.”

As the living Tolta construct threw herself around the Arlo summoning in an embrace that was long overdue, Jorl discretely closed off his awareness of the created space. He slipped into the kitchen and helped himself to a bowl of stew and a wooden spoon. A moment later, he was crossing through the greeting room again on his way out the front door. He paused for just a moment to see the smile and tears on Tolta's face, and went outside into the night.

 

APPENDIX ONE: RACES OF THE ALLIANCE

The astute reader will have noticed that the characters portrayed in this novel appear to represent a variety of anthropomorphic animals. In fact, at this point in time, there are some eighty-seven different species or “races” existing in the Alliance, more than a hundred billion sapient beings occupying approximately four thousand planets.

These races are identified by the common names of the animals they resemble—rendered here as proper nouns—or by a clipped version of the applicable Latin genus. Of these races, all are mammals, and all but two are furred. This pair of exceptions, collectively known as “Fant,” appears to bear a connection to the two species on Earth known as African and Asian elephants. Thus Jorl is identified as an Elephant or Fant, but also as a Lox, from
Loxodonta africana
.

The list below identifies the races of characters seen in this book, but is only a small portion of the raised mammals that comprise the Alliance.

•
  Ailuros,
Ailuropoda,
Giant Panda. Jorl's only friend during his time in the Patrol was an Ailuros named Dund. Krasnoi's security team aboard the orbital station are all Pandas.

•
  Aplodon,
Aplodontia,
Mountain Beaver. A lieutenant sitting at navigation on the bridge of the
Resolute Purpose
was a Beaver.

•
  Bos,
Bos,
Yak. Senator Bish, chairman of the Committee of Information is a Yak. Jorl once wrote the foreword to a book by a Bos historian named Fenna. The most well-known Bos is probably Thelos, a mass murderer said to have been possessed by a demon.

•
  Brady,
Bradypus,
Three-toed Sloth. Druz, the personal assistant to the chair of the Senate's Committee of Information is a Brady. So are Hrum and Morth, the captain and a lieutenant (respectively) of Jorl's Patrol ship.

•
  Cans,
Canis,
Domestic Dog. Most of the rank and file members of Major Krasnoi's crew are Cans.

•
  Cynomy
, Cynomys,
Prairie Dog. One of the “junior stature” races of the Alliance, the Cynomy include the civil parson who oversaw Lirlowil's reclassification from citizen to resource. Senator Welv of the Committee of Information is also a Prairie Dog, as are a third of Senator Bish's precognitivists (e.g., Tekki).

•
  Eleph,
Elephas,
Asian Elephant. Margda, the Matriarch of Barsk, was an Eleph, as was the legendary Pholo, the only Fant who could fly. Other Eleph include Emil, Phas, Grummel, Mickl, Rüsul, Shtev, and Yeft. Along with the Lox, Eleph make up the other half of the pair of races referred to as “Fant.”

•
  Feln,
Felis,
Cat. Several Feln worked at Krasnoi's polar base, processing the Dying. There is also at least one Feln among the senators who comprise the Committee of Information.

•
  Geom,
Geomys,
Gopher. The secondary and tertiary navigation boards on the
Resolute Purpose
are manned by Geoms. Senator T'Minah of the Committee of Information is also a Geom. These are another of the “junior stature” races.

•
  Lep,
Lepus,
Hare. One of the senators on the Committee of Information is a Lep.

•
  Lox,
Loxodonta,
African Elephant. Jorl is a Lox, as was his friend Arlo, Arlo's mother Kembü, Arlo's wife Tolta, and their son, Pizlo (it should be noted that soulless children can also be born among the Eleph, the other race that together with the Lox comprise the “Fant”). Other Lox mentioned include Adri, Golub, Belti, Tral, and Yarva.

•
  Lutr,
Lutra,
Eurasian Otter. Lirlowil, the telepathic Speaker from Sharv, is a Lutr.

•
  Marmo,
Marmot,
Groundhog. This is another of the “junior stature” races. Two members of the Committee of Information are Marmos.

•
  Myrm,
Myrmecophaga,
Giant Anteater. Kengi, the communications officer on Jorl's vessel during his time in the Patrol, was a Myrm.

•
  Nonyx,
Acinonyx,
Cheetah. Selishta is the Nonyx-Captain of the vessel Krasnoi used to abduct Dying Fant (and Jorl) while on Barsk.

•
  Taxi,
Taxidea,
Badger. The squad of six interrogators that questioned the Dying Fant at Krasnoi's polar base were all Badgers.

•
  Theraonca,
Panthera onca,
Jaguar. Rismas, the ensign assigned to keep watch on Jorl while aboard the
Resolute Purpose,
is a Theraonca.

•
  Vulp,
Vulpes,
Fox. Another of the “junior stature” races of the Alliance. Shtev had a Vulp penpal on an Alliance medical station.

•
  Urs,
Ursus,
Bear. Krasnoi the Alliance Major is an Urs. As is a senator from the Committee of Information. Jorl recounts having met several Urs during his time in the Patrol.

 

APPENDIX TWO: THE ISLANDS OF BARSK

Barsk is a watery world with only a single, uninhabitable continent located at its south pole and two chains of islands. These archipelagos lay just south of the equator and stretch east and west to span nearly a fifth of their hemisphere. The planet's ubiquitous cloud cover ensures none of this is visible from orbit.

Within the archipelagos the islands differ from one another in shape and size, the largest as much as eighteen times the size of the smallest. Some possess natural harbors, some do not. All are within a day of hard paddling from at least one other, and most have a neighbor close enough that ferries transit back and forth from dawn to dusk. Beyond minor patches of beach, all are covered with rain forests representing several dozen types of meta-trees that could easily be considered the dominant native life form. On every island, the Fant have built their homes high in these trees, in a section that is always referred to as the Civilized Wood.