The Companions (46 page)

When Sybil sat beside me with her plate, I noticed her pocket moving and touched it questioningly. A small head poked out, fuzzy, with large ears and huge eyes.

“Gixit,” she said. “The rest of the family are up at the ESC.”

The little creature gave me a look of surprise and dived back into her pocket, from which it peeked at me at intervals, accompanying itself with a long soliloquy that sounded to me like speech. “Do they talk?” I asked Sybil.

“They chatter,” she said, dismissively. “It isn't language.”

I regarded the little thing with a skeptical eye. It had certainly sounded like language to me. Perhaps it was the result of my having lived with Paul all those years. Anything sounded like language. We didn't take long with breakfast. By the time the sun was above the horizon, we were on our way again.

Our positional navigation system put us halfway up the side of the lake when we spotted something ahead that was not moss or tree. We stopped the floater and went forward on foot. The something turned out to be the other floater, half-covered with leaves and moss branches. I heard a welcoming woof and turned to one side to find Scramble in a mossy nest, well hidden behind a half-rotten tree. She was guarding all three litters of puppies.

“Scramble,” I half shouted. “Why are you all risking the puppies like this? Don't you know they could be killed? There are Derac out there. I'm sure they'd love puppy for dinner, and maybe dog, as well.”

She gave me a long, level look that told me I was overreacting. After all, here she was, with all the puppies, and nothing disastrous had happened.

The look wasn't enough to stop me. “And if Veegee and Dapple get killed? I suppose you have enough milk for all three litters!”

“You ahv,” she said.

I trusted she didn't mean me, personally, but the resources of the base. Since she wasn't at all remorseful, yelling at her would do no good.

While the others brought the floater up, I sat down on the fallen tree, wiping my face with the backs of my dirty hands, surprised to find that I'd actually been weeping. It was relief, I suppose. I'd been half-convinced we'd find them all dead.

“What is Behemoth after?” I asked Scramble. “What does he want?”

“Hearsh oishes,” she said.

“Voices? Whose?”

She shrugged. “Hearsh in win. Shay comm.”

“When did he hear these voices in the wind?”

“Heer, mahsh.”

“Here on Moss? Since we first got here?”

She nodded.

The dogs had good ears, but then, so did I, and I had heard nothing of the kind. Unless, of course, the sound range had been above human hearing, in that particularly shrill range that only dogs and bats can hear. Or unless…

“Hear, Scramble? Or maybe, smell?”

“Smell,” she conceded. “Mai'ee.”

This was an all-purpose “maybe” word meaning she didn't know, wasn't sure. My mind was full of ugly visions, visions of the other dogs being slain, hurt, incapacitated, and Scramble left here alone. She whined, and I looked up.

“Ai no yu comm,” she said. “Always no yu comm.”

“Yes,” I whispered to her, putting my arms around her. She knew I would always come to love and protect her. I
knew she would always come to love and protect me. We were friends, and she had depended on that.

Also, she'd been reading my mind, as usual.

I dropped my voice to a whisper. “You were the one who decided to stay here, with the puppies, because you knew I'd come? You knew they'd be in danger. You didn't want Behemoth to take them in the first place?”

She looked away from me with that impenetrable gaze she sometimes wore. She agreed with what I'd said, but she wasn't going to be disloyal to Behemoth by admitting it.

I put my head against hers and murmured nothing at her, letting her know I understood what she'd been up against, letting her know she hadn't betrayed our friendship, not in any way. She put her nose against my neck, just below the jaw. I think it was a way of saying, “You're safe with me here. I would take the throat out of anyone who harmed you…”

Clare and the others brought our floater up. She and I held a brief colloquy about what should be done next. I wanted the puppies up on the plateau, where there were people who could feed them and care for them if something happened to their parents, someone who would know exactly what to do, even if no adult dogs were…available, ever. I spoke through my teeth, trying not to make unseemly noises of grief. The very thought hurt.

Clare said, “It's got to be me, Jewel. There are only two of us here with any idea about it, and you need to go on, to see what's happening. If someone will go with me to drive the floater, I'll take the puppies back to ESC.”

I put the matter to Abe and Sybil, and Abe agreed eagerly, giving me the strong impression that the sooner he returned to the protection of the force screens, the happier he would be.

I explained to Scramble, asking her if she wanted to go with them or go on farther, with us. When I assured her the puppies could be fed and cared for, she said she would go
with us. She meant, go be with Behemoth, and we both knew it.

“Abe,” I said, “keep low and stay away from the lake until you're well back on the other side. We don't want the Derac to see you.”

“Don't they have traffic screens?” Clare asked. “We'll show up on them, no matter how low we are.”

“They may have, but we've had ships landing fairly regularly, plus floaters going here and there. Remember how we traveled to and from the plateau yesterday, and keep yourselves at treetop level until you're shielded by rock. A long diagonal line from here to the top of the plateau will catch their attention where a low-flying floater won't.”

“You want me to come back with the floater?” Abe asked, somewhat grudgingly. “There may not be room on that other one for all of you.”

“I'm sure Gainor already has fish watching the battleground. Ask him to keep an eye on them, and when things settle down, after the battle, we'll expect someone to come pick us up.”

The four of us who were left took up our packs and began following the trail on foot, Scramble in the lead, Sybil and I behind her, and Ornel bringing up the rear.

We made better time than I had expected, as Scramble was able to differentiate between a dog detour and a trail that went continuously forward. We climbed for the first part of the journey, a gentle rise that continued upward for some time before descending again almost to the level of the lake, which sparkled at us intermittently, off to our right. The sun swung above us and as our shadows began to lengthen toward the east, I felt a sense of oppression, a kind of smothering weight on the eyes and the ears, a stuffed-up feeling. I wasn't alone. Ornel cursed under his breath and stopped at the edge of a small clearing to dig through his pack for some kind of medicament to clear his eyes.

I said. “I feel it, too. It could be some kind of…scent curtain, perhaps. Can you smell anything?”

Though he said he couldn't smell anything, I certainly did, an elusive and wholly novel odor, not nasty or disgusting, but admonitory, all the same. I called to Scramble, and when she returned to us, I asked her what the smell was.

“Is laish lon umun,” she said.

“This place belongs to someone,” I translated for Ornel's and Sybil's benefit. “It's a keep out sign. No trespassing.”

I wasn't sure they heard me, both of them staring at Scramble as though she'd grown another head. Finally, Sybil shook herself, saying; “We must be getting close to
the battleground. I doubt the warriors will smell it if we don't.”

“But wouldn't they be likely to?” I asked. “Gavi Norchis told me they were all ‘noses' back on Forêt.”

“She was also telling you not to talk about her,” said a voice.

We turned. My two companions gasped as Gavi herself edged into view from behind a nearby tree, complete with crab armor except for the hideous head, which was under her arm.

“I am meeting you strangely, Jewel Delis,” she said.

“I am meeting you happily,” I responded, surprised at the jolt of pure joy that had struck me at her appearance. “We were just talking about the smell. Scramble says it means keep out.”

“It is meaning that.” She shrugged. “But it is being only a caution smell, not a punishment. It is warning World is using to keep creatures from danger. Battleground is dangerous, so, it warns creatures away.”

“Are the warriors already there?” I asked.

“No. When they are camping for the night, I am continuing along trail. I am always liking to know what is around, what kinds of things are growing, where are hiding places, where are trees for climbing. When I am getting to battleground, I am deciding to go around it, to be seeing what is here on every side.”

“What about Day Mountain? Have they arrived?”

Gavi shook her head. “Not yet. Who are these people?”

I apologized for not introducing her earlier and promptly did so. Ornel bowed over her hand, Sybil nodded as Gixit looked out of her pocket and trilled. This enchanted Gavi, and nothing would do but that we sit down in the clearing, build a fire, brew tea—to counteract the stuffiness, so Gavi said—and play with the little creature. I had to confess, we were all in a better mood afterward, including Scramble, who let Gixit lie on her shoulder and talk into one velvet ear, occasionally rumbling a response.

Gavi questioned what we were doing there, of course, so I told her about Behemoth's adventure. “Adam repeated what you said about the dogs being included in the message from the World, and I guess Behemoth was determined to see for himself.”

“I have been sniffing same message several times since,” Gavi said. “Always, they are emitting question about four legs. Do they wish to come through? They are not saying come through what, and it is confusing, not?”

“You didn't encounter the dogs on your way here?” Ornel asked.

“No. But I have not yet been going all around battleground,” she said. “If dogs are wanting to watch, they would be going westward a little, where is being higher ground.”

Gavi and I put the paraphernalia away while Ornel drowned the fire with what was left of the tea. We were just about to pick up our packs and proceed once more when Gixit squealed and ran for Sybil's pocket. Scramble put her head up, drew her lips back, and rumbled a warning as she stared through the trees toward the glimmer of the lake. In a moment I caught a wave of scent, pleasantly resinous. We all heard something moving, and then, music!

Instinctively, we backed farther from the trees, out into the clearing, as we tried to locate the source of the sound. There was movement in the woods, something invisible moving small trunks and branches, the music getting louder, and then, all at once, a copse of trees came lolloping into the clearing, leaflets burgeoning along every tendril, curved rootlet after curved rootlet turning and heaving like wheels, the whole in flourishing motion as it bugled and banged a marching tune that seemed to set the pace for the whole flower-embellished ensemble.

“What is it?” grated Ornel in a panicky voice.

“Willog,” gasped Gavi. “Is being a willog, most strange!”

The willog no doubt heard us, for it stopped in its tracks with a silvery shiver of foliage and regarded us for a long moment with what felt like either expectation or exaspera
tion. I, having felt that same kind of look from a good many animals requiring acknowledgment, said, “Good morning.”

“Good, wonderful, most elegant morning,” cried the willog in several melodic voices that bonged and thonked like a chime of bamboo bells. “A good morning to be meeting peoples. Is one of you the person who sniffs the world?”

We were for a moment confused by this, but Gavi shuddered briefly, cleared her throat, and said, “I sniff the world, usually.”

“I am willog self-named Walking Sunshine,” it said. “I am first willog with voice! Be congratulatory! I am creature of speaking words!”

“We congratulate you upon your achievement,” I said, not knowing whether to laugh or run screaming. It sounded totally nonthreatening, but it was so very large, so twiggy, so full of offshoots and wiry-looking twiny bits that it was difficult to believe it was harmless and impossible to know where the voice was really coming from. Politeness be damned, I had to know: “Where are your…eyes and ears and mouth?”

An agile tendril zoomed toward me, stopping just short of my face, and from its swollen tip a large blue eye regarded me with interest. The eye had an eyelid with lashes that batted flirtatiously, seeming to wink at me, enjoying its own joke. That tendril was immediately joined by several others bearing either human-style ears or assorted types of eyes, some of them not at all mammalian-looking.

“Voice box, puffers, and tongue assembly do not fit on small parts,” said the willog. “I have them inside main trunk, issuing through new mouth parts!”

Somewhat reassured by its manner, I said, as calmly as I could manage, “I am told that willogs are good poets.”

“Some very good, yes,” said the willog.

Its words were completely clear, with only a hint of echo, though with that intriguingly wooden sound, like an old musical instrument…a marimba! That was it.

It said, “I do make poems, but it would be prideful of me to claim they are good ones.”

Gavi regarded it gravely, “Will you recite one for us?”

The willog extended two fronds, each with a set of seven words hanging from it.

“This is verse number one of my favorite own poem. It is a double seven.”

“A double seven,” Gavi repeated. “Which means?”

“Which means I have made it in moss words and in human words, one moss word to each line of the seven. In this way, we may say it, and see it, and hear it, and also smell it!” Its voice rose with enthusiasm. “How marvelous to have ears and eyes. How marvelous to have voices.”

With an exuberant gesture, it shook the foremost frond until the word at the end came loose. It tugged the other six after it, and, instead of dancing off as I had seen happen before, the group began to circle and enlarge. There was an audible crepitation as they swelled in size, dwindling to a slight rustle.

“Poets grow them so,” the willog whispered in a very stagy aside. “So they will recite for peoples, not go waltzing off to nowhere. First, hearing words!”

Taking a deep breath, the willog recited:

 

“Here
we stand
digging down
within the mold
of infinite leaves
budded, aged, fallen
sustaining each one of us.”

 

“That is sound speaking of first seven of poem,” said the willog, turning toward me. “Now smell! The first word has one smell, the second word two smells, and so on up to seven smells in the last word, conveying the entire verse.”

I looked helplessly at Gavi as the words began to circle. After one or two turns, she spoke, rather hesitantly:

“First word. The ambient scent of the world, meaning
here
. Second word: the scent of this willog, and of a healthy tree, with no separation, meaning
we stand.
Third word: Ah. What's this? Surprising! I am understanding it though. The three smells are herbage, then sweat, then damp earth. To get that sequence, one would have to be
digging down.

“Fourth word: A surface moss and wood smell, a smell from inside the moss, a smell of roots, a smell of rotted mosses. The combination takes one
into the mold
itself.

“Fifth word. A set of mixed leaves…I am not identifying. Another set, another, another, a fifth one. Ah. Far too many to distinguish or count, therefore
of infinite leaves
.

“Sixth word. Ah. Yes. Now that I am knowing how the sweat smell is used, word six is not being difficult. Bud smell, old sweat—meaning past tense—leaf smell, old sweat, and dead leaf smell, old sweat,
Budded, aged, fallen,
six smells in all.”

She looked at the willog with what seemed to me respectful admiration as she continued, “Seventh word, first smell: dawn smell. Second smell, same, and third smell, same, the third time with a moist soil and sweat scent added. Once is meaning once, of course, as twice means twice, but three times is meaning some or many. Just as
many evenings
is meaning the past, so is
many dawns
meaning the future. Soil and sweat smells are indicating a future with work in it.
Sustaining
. The fourth smell is of the drack tree…”

“The drack tree?” I croaked, totally lost.

“A resinous, thorny tree, very rare, which is always growing alone, a separate thing, an
each
. The fifth smell is of this willog,
one;
then a separation. The sixth smell is of many willogs, separation, then the seventh smell, a repeated one, again many willogs, the meaning of six and seven together,
of us
.”

She nodded, saying to the willog in an interested though
rather judgmental voice, “Is being very…demanding. The word
sustaining
is requiring considerable reach of understanding.”

“Oh, yes,” the willog agreed. “Growing a seven poem is very demanding. How to get the talker roots to grow the last word correctly so it does seven different things before popping, that is difficult.” An ambient eye turned toward me. “A seven word must always use at least one smell more than once because the words have only six sets of emitters.”

“If you can grow it to do all that, why don't you grow one with seven sides?” Ornel asked.

The willog shuddered all over, as though wracked by an icy wind. “Oh, do not say. Please, do not say. To say is…impropriety, unnatural, perverted. Even master poets who do eight- and ten-smell poems, do it with only six sets of emitters. Though,” the willog looked somehow thoughtful—“Sometimes such poems are so distantly allusive as to be barely possible of apprehension. Always before, the work smell has been very difficult to make and to recognize.”

“Moss's beings don't smell when they work?” I asked.

The willog shook the upper part of its largest trunk from side to side, disclosing as it did so several apertures high on the bole that might be its sound emitters. “We work slowly, effortfully but not strenuously, and our odors are extremely subtle. When men came, however, we learned the smell the humans give off when they struggle to do things, and that has given us many new
doing
words. Now we have also speak words, making many things easier to understand.”

“What I don't understand,” I said, “is how you have acquired so many human words. This acquisition is recent, is it not? How did you come up with this vocabulary?”

“Ah. In bad-smell…ah, that is, in human place by Lake Stinks-of-Toothy-Things, one could see places called notice boards, one could hear humans reading of them. So, Walky is gaining some words.
Attention
and
Personnel
and
Commissary
and
Language.
Evidently, master person is making
rule against bad language. Walky rejoiced in this. Bad language is ruinous to speaking creatures. Like fungus growing on spirit. Then, Walky is seeing human place labeled
linguistics.
I, Walking Sunshine, read this as similar to word for language, and watched through window as the human using machine brings forward a thing called
Dictionary.
At night, when the human is asleep, one ear tendril goes through the window, one eye tendril goes through the window, one more tendril to push the buttons. Walky pushes button, machine says word, says what word means. I am reading at same time. Soon, I have memorized it, some of it, well, a portion of it. It would take many nights to remember it all.”

“You must be very intelligent,” I said.

The willog drew itself up. “I am intelligent, of course, as willogs must be. Willogs have many responsibilities. You have heard only the first seven of my poem. It is a double seven, but the second verse is not quite ripe. Nonetheless, I will recite to you second verse: