Earthfall (Homecoming) (26 page)

“As for your loathing for the chair,” said Volemak, “Nafai and I are pretty sure we can install a relay somewhere on that peak. It overlooks the angels’ valley as well as the whole canyon approach. I think your magnetics will work there.”

“Unless I walk behind a tree,” said Issib.

“The relay consists of four installations so that there’s always a parallax,” said Nafai. “It would have to be a very big tree.”

“If the magnetics work, I’ll do it,” said Issib.

“You’ll do it anyway,” said Volemak. “You’ll just be angrier if you’re in the chair. But think of this as the consolation prize. You get the Index.”

“So there we’ll be,” said Nafai. “The four of us. The brothers who married the sisters.”

“I’ll still be useless,” said Luet, trying to sound dispassionate, but failing.

“No more so than Nafai,” said Volemak. “And no less. The angels aren’t going to be as impressed by the glowing skin as the diggers were.
Their
first exposure to us was an act of wanton violence. Even with Hushidh and Issib to counsel you, it’s going to take some delicate maneuvering to get them to accept you in the first place. Yasai and Padarok have assured me that our injured angel made no offer of violence. But that doesn’t mean that the others are necessarily peaceable. After all, they
are
a sentient species. If humans and diggers are any example of what that means, we can anticipate that they have just as many murderous tendencies as we have.”

“Then let’s just wipe ’em all out,” said Nafai.

Everyone looked at him in horror.

“That was a
joke
,” he said.

“Try not to make jokes like that with the angels,” said Volemak.

Nafai looked disgusted. “When I’m responsible for something, I don’t make stupid jokes,” he said. Then he grinned. “But this is
your
meeting.”

“I appreciate your supportive attitude,” said Volemak. “Now does anyone have anything else?”

“I do,” said Shedemei. “This is especially for the four of you who are going up to the angels, but it’s really for everybody who works with the diggers, too. You have to notice everything. Not just the way that they’re different from us, but the ways that they’re the same, too. You have to make a note of it immediately, every single thing you notice, because the longer you wait to write it down, the more you’ll be accustomed to their way of doing things and so the more likely you are to stop noticing it. Issib has the Index, and I have the computers here on the ship—we should be making reports every night.”

“When do we do all this?” asked Oykib.

“The work with the diggers starts immediately,” said Volemak. “But until we can take a healthy—or at least not dying—angel back up to his people, we aren’t going back up that canyon. So for now, the four of you will take shifts with this poor busted-up fellow. Spend as much time with him as Shedemei thinks advisable. Make a
friend
out of him, if you can.” Then he glowered at them all. “And you
will
make sure that you never take this fellow anywhere that he even
might
run into Elemak. Elya will have access to the ship as always, but I’ll ask him to stay off the deck where Shedemei is helping the angel recuperate. That should do the job.”

Shedemei had only one thing to add. “I especially want to know anything that has to do with sex. Reproduction and survival—those are the two key forces that drive evolution. I won’t understand their biology or their culture until I know what is imperative for their mating, breeding, sustenance, and defense. Somehow those sculptures play a role for
both
cultures.”

“Art is life,” Nafai intoned. “And life is art.”

Luet poked him again, as hard as she could. He yelped. She hoped it left a bruise.

As the meeting broke up, Shedemei and Issib spent a few moments looking in detail at the scans and charts of the digger and angel bodies. “I was going to bring this up for the whole group,” Shedemei said, “but the meeting went a different way. I didn’t know what Volemak was planning, and all that matters is that
you
be aware of this so you can watch for an explanation when you’re up the canyon with the angels.”

“I haven’t agreed to go,” said Issib.

Shedemei looked at him blankly.

“Yes, well, show me anyway,” said Issib.

“Here,” she said. “In the digger males. And here, in our one angel, also a male.”

“I don’t know what it is you’re pointing at.”

“Neither do I,” said Shedemei. “But it’s a tiny organ, maybe a gland, I’m not sure at all of the function. But it isn’t present in humans, and it isn’t present in any other species I’ve scanned.”

“So, they’re different.”

“It’s not that simple,” said Shedemei. “Biological diversity come through branching. There are two ways that creatures can have similar organs. One is that they have a common ancestor. The other is through convergent evolution—similar pressures in the environment caused them to develop similar strategies to counter it. Now, if they have the identical organ because of a common ancestor, there should be evidence of it in all the other species that diverged from the same source at the same time. But there isn’t, Issib.
No
other species of rat or bat or any other rodent or related animal has anything remotely like this structure in this location or even near it. I’m talking about now and I’m talking about forty million years ago, when the oldest biological database on the ship was put together. It’s not there.”

“Convergent evolution, then.”

“But except in the case of skeletal and muscular structure, convergent evolution only gets you organs with similar
functions
. There’s no particular reason why they should have the same location.”

“Unless it has to do with male reproduction and just above the scrotum is the only location that would work,” said Issib.

“Exactly. So what I need you to look for, and what I’ll be looking for down here, is a reason for these two species, and only these two species, to have this organ. When you think about it, why should the two sentient species on Earth have this particular similarity?”

“Because it’s related to their intelligence?” asked Issib.

“That has to be the first thought,” said Shedemei. “But then, we haven’t had a chance to look at females. They’re intelligent, too—but if they lack this structure—”

“Or one that has an analogous function—”

“You see the mystery,” said Shedemei. “This organ came from somewhere and has some function, and it exists only in the two intelligent species, and may exist only in the males. It may have to do with intelligence. It may have to do with sex, given the location.”

Issib grinned. “Maybe they’re more similar to humans than we thought.”

Shedemei glowered. “You mean that maybe male intelligence is testosterone-related?”

“I would have put it more crudely,” said Issib.

“No doubt,” said Shedemei, “seeing as you’re a male. But as you implied, human males already think with their male appendage half the time, and they
don’t
have this strange little organ.”

“It was just a joke, Shedemei, not a serious scientific proposal.”

Shedemei smiled thinly. “I knew that, Issib. I was joking back.”

He laughed. It was a little forced.

“Watch for some explanation, Issib, that’s all I ask. I’ll put everything I notice in the database so we can share information through the Index the whole time you’re up there.”

“
If
I’m up there,” Issib said.

“Whatever,” said Shedemei.

While Issib and Shedemei conferred at one of the computer displays, Chveya stopped Luet and took her aside, letting all the others leave the library and the ship without them.

“Why was Father acting so childish during the meeting?” Chveya asked. “It’s embarrassing.”

“Childish?” asked Luet. “I don’t think of it that way. He’s always done this sort of thing.”

“I’ve never seen him do it. And it isn’t funny.”

“It is to him,” said Luet. “And to me, actually.”

“I don’t understand him at all,” said Chveya.

“Of course not,” said Luet. “He’s your father.”

Chveya was almost to the ladderway when Luet thought of the real answer to Chveya’s real question. “Veya, my dear, the reason you’ve never seen him like this before is simple enough. This is how he acts when he’s happy.”

Chveya raised her eyebrows, nodded thoughtfully, then took hold of the ladder and slid down like a child. “Be careful!” Luet yelled down after her. “Remember that you’re pregnant!”

“Oh, Mother!” Chveya yelled back, her voice echoing through every floor of the ship.

And she criticizes her father for acting childish? Luet shook her head, then took hold of the ladder and went down, one step at a time.

Poto hung upside down from the branch, his wings gathered close against his body like the clothing that the Old Ones wore. He listened in patient silence to Boboi’s harangue, to all the others who argued her side. There were so many of them, and none had come to speak for Poto. pTo’s wife, Iguo, would gladly have spoken for him, but it was forbidden for a wife to speak in such circumstances, simply because everyone knows what she would say. She stood upside down from the same branch as Poto, but she was silent.

If Poto stood alone, he nevertheless had two things going for him. First, everyone here knew what one owed to one’s otherself. Boboi could muster all her arguments—pTo is certainly dead; the Old Ones are already angry so let’s not provoke them more; the Old Ones only took pTo’s body home to feed it to the devils—but in the heart of every man and woman in the assembly there would be all the deep and complicated feelings each had for his or her otherself. Poto’s own feelings were difficult to sort out. pTo had gone down against Poto’s own advice; it had also been against Poto’s advice that he went alone to face the Old Ones, to offer to return the stolen grain. But pTo was also his otherself, and when Poto watched the angry bearded giant break and tear pTo’s body like it was kindling, it was all Poto could do to keep himself from screaming and flying at the Old One, even though that would mean certain death and was strictly prohibited. When you cannot save the captured one, then don’t give them a second one. Poto tried to be perfectly obedient to the laws and wisdom of the people; others commended him afterward for his silence as it happened, but it was little consolation to him. pTo, you fool! he cried out inside himself. And then, O pTo, my otherself, if only I could have died for you!

For wasn’t it fated that Poto should be the one to die? When they were two years old—too big for either of their parents to carry one of them alone—the devils came on their raid and found the family hiding place. Without hesitation, both parents took hold of pTo’s feet and carried him off to the high refuge. It was a long flight. Poto was alone on the branch, with a digger climbing rapidly to reach him. Knowing that his parents had chosen his otherself, and not him, Poto almost stayed where he was; why should he value his own life, if his parents did not? But the will to live was too strong. And also there was pTo’s shout as his parents carried him off. “Live, little soul!” he cried. For his parents Poto was nothing, so he would not live for them. He would live for pTo.

So he inched his way out to the most remote end of the branch. The devil laughed at him then, and began climbing out the branch, slowly, carefully. It bowed lower and lower under his weight. Poto could see another devil waiting under the branch, ready to seize him the moment he descended low enough.

The devil below him jumped and its fierce digging hands brushed Poto’s head. Many children at such a time became so terrified that they tried to fly, but with wings so small and weak they couldn’t get aloft, and the devils would have sport chasing them as they fluttered and staggered near the ground. Those who tried to fly always were caught, were always carried down into the devil’s tunnels where they were eaten in terrible barbaric festivals.

Poto did not try to fly. Instead, he mustered his courage and moved closer to the devil on the branch. This had the effect of raising him above the height that the lower devil could reach by jumping. But it put him nearly within reach of the upper devil’s sweeping hand. Twice the hand struck at Poto’s feet. But the second time, the devil had so extended himself that his balance was precarious indeed, and at that moment Poto
bounced
. The devil yelped and fell from the branch. And before he could climb back up and try again, Poto’s parents returned and carried him away to safety, to the place where pTo greeted him with an embrace and listened as Poto told him of his terrible adventure. Ever since that time Poto knew that his life had been spared so he could watch over the chosen self; everyone had respect for that and knew that if it were not meant for Poto to protect pTo, he would have been taken by the devils that day.

The second great argument on Poto’s side was that everyone knew that no matter what the assembly decided, Poto would go down to find pTo and do his best to save him, even offering himself in pTo’s place, if he wasn’t already dead. So what the assembly was really deciding was not whether Poto would go, but rather whether Poto’s going would be so dangerous that he should have a wing torn to prevent him from going. This would be a terrible punishment, for to deprive a man of flight was the ultimate humiliation. It was the punishment given to a man who forced himself on a woman, and it always led to the same end: a cruel, humiliating death at the hands of the devils on their next raid. Because he was not an infant, he would not be carried down into the caves. Instead, the raiders would eat him raw on the spot, not bothering to kill him first. The distraction of having a tornwing to eat might save a few infant lives—it was the only thing such a criminal was good for.

It would be a cruel thing to do, when Poto’s only crime was that he intended to save his otherself no matter what the assembly decided. But it would do no good to deny that he meant to defy the assembly—that would only humiliate him by making it seem that he did not love his otherself more than the law. Just as a wife was expected to plead for the rescue of her husband, and so was silenced regardless of whether she actually would have pled for him or not, so also a man was expected to defy all fears, laws, dangers, and wisdom to fly to the rescue of his otherself. So whether he broke the law or not, he should be punished as if he had. If the people did
not
punish him, it would mean they thought he was the most contemptible of creatures, a man who would not risk all for his otherself. Better to be a tornwing.