The Star Whorl (The Totality Cycles Book 1) (13 page)

     “Someone else gets to
activate it, next time,” he said, flopping into the seat that was most
comfortable to him.

     “Getting sleepy,
silver-wing?” Thynnu Tikati’Pas laughed, leaning against Thy-Lerefo’Gol.

     “Oh ha, yes, wake me when we
get there,” he said, holding Pavtala Ralili’Bax when she leaned against him. He
leaned his head back and pretended to sleep, parodying loud snores. Their
friends laughed.

     “Eh, eh, he might really be
asleep, someone pull one of his vuu’erio,” Thy-Lerefo’Gol said with mock
concern, eliciting more laughter.

     He caught Pavtala
Ralili’Bax’s hand without opening his eyes, not breaking his fake snore,
brought it down to his mouth and pretended to nibble on her fingers in his
pretend sleep.

     “Oh ha, don’t eat our
hostess, she’s the only one with the images!” Ro-Becilo’Ran said with fake
alarm.

     “Oh, but she might like it,”
Ropali Galici’Bel admonished. “She has strange likes and tastes, I hear!”

     “You’ve tasted her?” Thynnu
Tikati’Pas teased, opening her eyes wide, and Kreceno’Tiv could not contain a
smile and a chuckle.

     “You never can be sure, can
you?” Ropali Galici’Bel tossed back saucily, amid hoots and laughing gestures. “The
sum of all possibilities within the All is non-zero.”

     Kreceno’Tiv stretched and waved
his vuu’erio tennae, looking around as if just waking. “Oh ha, what’d I miss?”
he asked ingenuously.

     “Galici’Bel was tasting
Ralili’Bax at one end, while you were sampling the other,” Thy-Lerefo’Gol said,
laughingly dodging a berry thrown at him.

     Kreceno’Tiv blinked at the
hand he still held at the wrist, as if surprised. “Eh, eh, where’d this come
from? What’ve you all been doing while I was napping?”

     “Finding out that I taste
good, apparently,” Pavtala Ralili’Bax said, raising her vuu’brow. “Anyone else
want a taste?” She balled up her free hand and waved it at them all.

     There was general laughter
as they moved with relative speed to their destination.

Whorl Thirty Eight

     At Pavtala Ralili’Bax’s
domicive, they discovered that there was a special Observis room for viewing
the images taken by the Ministry of Preservation. There were comfortable seats
and blank walls. Pavtala Ralili’Bax waved them to the seats and went to an aperture
in the wall, into which she set a view-glyphographic that was more complex than
the kind they used for Secondus. Then she hurried over to sit next to
Kreceno’Tiv.

     The walls flickered to life,
and then there was a comprehensive projection that wrapped around them,
complete with sound and glyph. He would have avowed that he could even sense
smells, as the image taker got into a kind of transport that he had never seen,
one that, presumably, was suited to go into hostile locales. The transport
rose, leaving the boulevards completely, and moved laterally across the landform,
heading out of the heart of the World-Tree itself. There was a time-cut, and
the edge of the Algna Suprum landform came into view. Then the explorers
plunged, passing super-Hives that formed beautiful patterns all along the
gargantuan trunk, down and down. They went by another major spread of branches
with Mji’Hives, some dark and looking unused.

     “Mother says that our World-Tree
has a cross-section that rivals other worlds’ continents,” Pavtala Ralili’Bax
said quietly. “I’ve never been to any other world, but continents are
landmasses, surrounded by water, water that is salt. Like our marine-forms, but
the water in our seas is mostly fresh and sap. And of course, we have the
air-gulfs between World-Trees that the Off-Limb ways cross, but peoples of
other worlds use their oceans as transport ways, whereas we have to build our
ways to cross our air-gulfs. Air transports have not been used by the populace
since before the fall of the Malkia.”

     There was another time-cut,
presumably the long travel time down the Trunk.

     “It took us two five-turns
to get to the tops of the Ground-Trees,” she said. “Even with the ancient
Med-Travel translation terminuses. Those were scary, how old they were!”

     The view came back just as
the Foliants of the Ground-Trees came into clear focus. The transport began to
move in an erratic pattern, almost dizzying.

     “Here, we’re looking for a
way to penetrate the Foliage, and avoid large air-predators,” she narrated, and
there was a tremble in her voice of remembered excitement and fear. Then one of
the predators came into view, and despite himself, Kreceno’Tiv jumped,
tightening his hold around Pavtala Ralili’Bax.

    
No wonder we went up into
the World-Trees!
he thought, his heart hammering.

     “Things that big should
not
be allowed to exist!” Ro-Becilo’Ran exclaimed, as the view jogged crazily,
doing a dance of death and avoidance with the monster.

     “There are cetaceans on
other worlds that don’t get as big as some of our air-predators,” Pavtala
Ralili’Bax whispered. The view finally seemed to stabilize, then plunged
beneath the giant leaves of the Ground-Trees. The light, already dim in the overwhelming
shadow of the World-Tree, cut off completely. The view changed, becoming part
false-color, part glyph. Beneath, the drone and cry of life was almost
deafening. The sound in the projection reduced. A third time-cut, and then the
murk swallowed even the apparent glyphs, so that secondary-retinal view had to
be used to make anything out. Strange sounds, that sent primal,
ancestral-memory shivers through him, seemed to bounce from all corners. He had
to suppress an instinctual reaction them, and realized that he was holding
Pavtala Ralili’Bax too tight, but she did not protest.

     “This was the scariest
part,” she said, shivering against him. “I never watch this by myself. Here,
the predators and all other life see only in glyphs. They don’t even have
primary retinas. Light never comes here. There is no way to hide, not even with
a veiling glyph, because they can
see
the glyph for the veil!”

     The glyphic-view was
phantasmal, as if the things that moved were themselves translucent or
transparent. Then the transport shone lights, dim lights that seemed to blast
away the darkness, and everything scattered, leaving only the environ to be
seen. The projection had cut off scent-glyphs, for which Kreceno’Tiv was
grateful, for though it was not true smelling, the glyphs themselves were
enough of a hint to know that they were not pleasant.

     “There is a combination of
what is called
swamp
and loam down between the Roots,” she said,
pointing to structures that rivaled the Limbs for size, but were humped and
misshapen, whereas the Limbs were mostly straight and parallel to the horizon.
“It is estimated that the Roots of the World-Trees take up seventy-nine percent
of our World’s surface, and actually provides nutrients to the soil, as opposed
to extracting them. How, we are not quite sure, but we think it is a form of photosynthesis.
There are fungi-forms and gargantuan molds and lichens that we have not even
begun to categorize, much less name, down here. Light was our best defense
against inimical beasts. Some even died, when exposed to light.”

     She fell silent as they
watched the projected tour of the artificially lit underworld. Glimpses and
flashes of dark-terror creatures fled before them. A few died, as she had said,
actually scorching in the weak light. Some of the vegetation died, also, but
most just shrank away. The unbelievably sized roots were like Ground-Trees in
themselves, and the trunks of the Ground-Trees sometimes seemed slender by
comparison. There were so many things that were beyond explanation, that soon,
Kreceno’Tiv was numb, with experiential overload. And just when he thought he
could not take in much more, the viewing ended.

Whorl Thirty Nine

     The lights came up
gradually, and he had to shake himself and lessen his grip on Pavtala
Ralili’Bax. It felt as if some part of his mind had regressed to a
pre-herstoric era, a time in which his ancestors had not ascended the
World-Trees, and had had to fight such horrors. He had to blink several times
to disengage his vuu’erio tennae from his secondary retinas – using both
primary and secondary together had given him a headache, and his eyes felt
strained. Only slowly did his thoughts return from that primal state.

     “That was...” Ropali
Galici’Bel was also blinking, and shaking her head. She was shaking a little,
and huddled against Ro-Becilo’Ran. “By the Ancient Hives, why aren’t such
things like this being shown? That has to be as good as visiting the
Bustani
!”

     Pavtala Ralili’Bax gestured
a regretful negative. “Can you imagine what would happen if the populace knew
what might be down there, in the present state of things? With the languor
plaguing the population, people would throw caution and aeons of instinctive
fear to the air-gulfs, and try to scale down to see these environs for
themselves! No, no!”

     Thy-Lerefo’Gol concurred.
“Oh ha, you’re right. It would be like mass suicide. No, better to not pique
their curiosity. The
Bustani
is a controlled setting, with minimal risk.
There would be no way to contain or restrain our people from rushing vuu’erio
first down into the depths, looking for thrills. I completely understand.”

     “Ho ho, you are wrong, not
even a Reform-reward would entice
me
to go down there!” Thynnu
Tikati’Pas said, shuddering. “By the Hives above, what monsters! To think, they
are down there all the time! Now we know why we live up here!”

     “So,” Pavtala Ralili’Bax
said brightly, bouncing up to her feet, “who’s hungry?”

     There was laughter and
groans at her question.

Whorl Forty

     The virtual adventure had
taken longer than they realized, and by the time they had eaten, it was time to
go home, as they had to attend Secondus the next turn. Pavtala Ralili’Bax
squeezed him hard as he took his leave of her, and he hugged her back. It had
been fun, more fun than he remembered having in a long time. The dark-time at
her domicive had been relaxed, jovial, with none of the impending sexual
tension that he had felt with Polista Zyledi’Kil.

    
Well, maybe not
none,
per say,
he corrected himself. She was attractive, and he was attracted to
her, but things had not gotten serious in the least, and he had been able to be
himself and enjoy the company without her commanding all his attention.
Not
that I mind the other type of interaction, but this was a change. It was –
different.

     “You like her,”
Ro-Becilo’Ran said, a smirk in his voice.

     “Ohh, your powers of
observation astound me,” Kreceno’Tiv said, not making his voice too sharp. “Did
you have to use your secondary retinas to figure that out?”

     “No,” Ro-Becilo’Ran
chuckled. “It’s obvious to simple sight. I just mean – she’s good for you. Easy,
fun. Not ‘pacing to pre-mate.” His suggestive glance spoke of Kreceno’Tiv not
wearing Pavtala Ralili’Bax’s colors.

     “She
is
fun.” He felt
a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. “But I’m not using her like that,
Becil, you know that.”

     “Oh, I know. She wants to...
Krece, my friend, people move around you, and you sip at their lives like fine
nectar. It’s like you’re a force that we can either move with or just get out
of the way of. She’s moving to your flow. Almost like...”

     He did not finish the
statement, but Kreceno’Tiv knew what he was going to say, the impression glyph
he projected was clear enough.
Like the Malkia-mothers.
It was not
really an insult, or a compliment, but a little of both. The Malkia had been
like primal forces, moving whole populaces to their will by glome alone. Some
had been kind, but a few, the most infamous, had been cruel, tarnishing the
Malkia Genii.

    
I’m like a Malkia?
he
thought derisively, wanting to snort.
Nothing like, or even close! I am not
a girl or a woman, I can’t glome! And I have no way of putting out the
pheromones of dominion that they did!

     “You have rocks in your
‘pace,” he said, gesturing denial. He leaned back, tucking in his vuu’erio.
“I’m just like any other male, any other person, scrambling for something to
do, hoping to get into Tertius. Especially since the OSI was announced. Malkia,
sure. A
force
, that people have to
move
with, or get out of the
way
of.” He did a nasal mimic of his friend.

     “Fine, don’t believe me. But
I know what I see.” Ro-Becilo’Ran flicked a vuu’erio tennae at him. “I know you
better than anyone. When Gotra Pelani’Dun had had you in her glome-cloud,
she
had been special, sparkling. But it wasn’t her, it was
you,
loving
her, that did it. When she gave you up, she lost that special something, and
she knows it. That’s one of the reasons she wants you back. And when you’re
down and sad, all of the girls around you want to perk you up, want to soothe
you. Males like you don’t come along often, Krece. When you mourn, the world
mourns with you. When you hurt, the world rallies to heal you. And when you
shine, the light-turn sun-glow on the undersides of the landmasses are all the
brighter because of it.”

     Kreceno’Tiv sat forward and
stared at Ro-Becilo’Ran, but his friend had leaned back and closed his eyes.

    
What nonsense is this?
he
wanted to demand, wanted to shake his friend. Ro-Becilo’Ran had spoken with
perfect seriousness, not mocking in the least.
It’s not true. I’m nothing
like that. You’re just exaggerating!

     “Thy-Lerefo’Gol wishes he
were like that, but he isn’t,” Ro-Becilo’Ran said, without opening his eyes.
“He’s jealous of you. I know better, and I just hang around you because of the
glimmer of a glitter it gives me.” He laughed and opened his eyes. “No,
seriously, I envy you, too, numb-pace, but I know when I’m in the presence of
my betters. I just sit back and watch the spectacle unfold.”