"Don't worry, lady," Keff said, cheerfully. "If TE's cousins have the magic technology, they can keep you as dry as you want."
"Oh, I want, I want," Carialle said. "That's one application of the technology I would look forward to using."
Within minutes, Carialle had picked up the signal from the landing beacon on the largest landmass in the planetary-northern hemisphere. She oriented herself to it, following a great circular route that would pass directly over it.
Beneath them, peeping through the cloud cover, half a dozen small continents floated on the surface of a vast, blue-green ocean. Small, blue ice caps appeared, then fell off to either side of the globe as Carialle descended. As the clouds parted, they could see how very green the low-lying lands were. Small Spot and Long Hand looked positively awed. They had never imagined the existence of so much water. Hazel-brown islands dotted the seas like freckles. Carialle opened megachip memory to record every detail and gave full visuals to those in the control room.
There was some minor particulate matter in the atmosphere, probably a sign of industrial activity, and creating a beautiful sunset half a world behind them. She caught the occasional sunspark as tiny airborne craft speeding below her reflected the yellow star's light. The whole scene reminded her of any one of hundreds of the Central Worlds, but everything was in such small scale compared to those in a human settlement. Her sensors told her that the flyers were only a meter square by less than two meters in length.
"How could we not have known they were here?" she wondered aloud.
Keff, never moving his eyes from the screen, shook his head slowly from side to side and clicked his tongue in agreement.
"This is the race, all right," Keff said, happily.
The partners' dream had always been to discover a sentient race equal to humanity in technological advancement and social development. There was no doubt about the well-established civilization below them, and their guests were living proof of the culture's prowess in space exploration.
The globe-frogs became agitated as the ship neared the stratosphere. Carialle picked up signals that were almost certainly what was arousing their senses.
"Take a look at the readings for the enormous power source down there," she told Keff. "Much larger than the Core of Ozran. The frequency hash is even greater. I'm reading controller codes in tiny bandwidths that I doubt could sustain what's necessary for one of the older amulets. Your machines will undoubtedly need tuning," she told Tall Eyebrow.
"It is true," he said, placing his long fingers on his belt buckle. "I can feel the great power source, but I cannot focus in on it to draw from it. My amulet frequency is already in use here."
"Well, you can stay on my engines for the time being," Carialle said. "Our hosts should give you a guest frequency when we land."
"But where are are we going to land?" Keff asked. "The instructions didn't give a location." we going to land?" Keff asked. "The instructions didn't give a location."
As if in answer, the ship shuddered. Carialle felt a forcefield surround her firmly, but gently, like a velvet envelope. She tried to accelerate out of its grasp, but it was everywhere. It swept her out of her orbital path and rerouted her, drawing her into a side-to-side sine-curve path that led toward the surface. Her passengers were thrown off their feet. The surprised globe-frogs missed slamming into the wall only by swift use of their amulets. Keff, without technological assistance, was knocked to the floor. He grabbed for the base of the control chair as he slid towards the bulkhead, and hoisted himself up toward the seat. The three hovering amphibioids looked down at him sympathetically.
"That's why," Carialle said simply. "They're going to put us down on the landing pad themselves. Damn Damn it! I hate being manhandled-I mean, froghandled, when I'm perfectly capable of doing this myself." it! I hate being manhandled-I mean, froghandled, when I'm perfectly capable of doing this myself."
"Do you mean you didn't make that course adjustment?" Keff asked, hauling himself up to his feet by grasping the arms of his crash couch. He sat down and pulled the impact straps around his body.
"Look, ma, no hands!" Carialle said, feeling somewhat bitter, but at the same time admiring the expertise and technology required to take over her landing. "You know I don't drive that badly. They've taken complete control of my vector and speed. I could shut off my engines right now and probably land very nicely, thank you, but I don't trust strangers that easily."
"They're holding us like an egg," Keff said, looking at the exterior pressure monitors. "It doesn't hurt, does it?"
"No," Carialle admitted, with the sound she used for a sigh. "However much I despise it, I have to admit they're doing a competent job. The Cridi are light-years beyond the skills of the mages of Ozran. It's more like a pillow than pincers. Chaumel the Silver and the other mages could only pin me down with their controllers. They couldn't catch me in flight."
"Lucky for us," Keff said, with a nod.
"And for us," Tall Eyebrow added, staring at the screen that monitored the continents over which they were flying. "Else we would not be returning home now."
"I'm shutting down thrusters," Carialle informed them.
At the same time the force was guiding her downward through the troposphere, Carialle had the sense she was being probed. The "mind" penetrated her hull, through her shielding, into and around her engines, her memory banks, the cabins and cargo hold, and into the shell which held her body. She stilled all life support activity except for respiration, wondering if she would be interfered with by curious technicians, but the touch passed on and out of her ship. She forced her circulatory system to excrete the unnecessary adrenaline produced by her anxiety, and added nutrients and serotonin from her protein and carbohydrate tanks. She disliked being out of control of her functions, but at least this time she could see everything and, to a minor extent, move herself slightly in the soft, invisible grasp.
"I will not panic," she told herself firmly. "I will not panic. I am in control. I can veer upward out of here at any time. I can. I can can."
Of all the softshells in her cabin, only Keff was unaware of the scan. The frogs, whether through latent telempathic sensitivity or the offices of their amulets, knew someone was examining them. Tall Eyebrow put his hand to his face with his fingers parted: a question to her.
"Yes, I feel it," she said, verbally and with sign through her frog image. "We're being given the look-see to find out who we really are."
"We come in peace," Tall Eyebrow said, worriedly.
"They must know that," Carialle commented, "or they could have dashed us all over the scenery by now."
"They may still," said Long Hand, cynically. "Are they waiting until we are over a certain point to pull us down?"
The velvet envelope absorbed the inertia as it slowed Carialle's velocity down to about a third. Gradually, she dumped more speed as her course destination became more evident. The northern continent appeared over the rim of the planet. The ship was whisked over jungles and rivers and a network of small cities, all looming larger and larger as they dropped. Carialle focused in tightly on the terrain, judging by the angle of descent and speed where the invisible hand would eventually set them down. The datafile she'd gathered of Cridi geography during her spiral told her that ahead on the eastern edge was a broad, flat plain. Most likely the spaceport lay there.
Traveling at only a few thousand kilometers per hour Carialle had time to record more detail of the land below as well as speculate on the welcoming committee. Most definitely the Cridi held all the reins on access and communication. Keff was looking forward to airing his sign language and the smatterings he'd already picked up of cheeps and twitters. Carialle just hoped that she wouldn't have to face one of her worst fears: seeing parts of her original hull being used by humanity's newest allies as chip and dip trays.
The land dished upward into low, rounded, green-backed mountain ranges as a broad river valley spread out beneath her. Carialle's aesthetic sense was pleased by the cities she could see now in greater detail, integrated fully with the rainforests that covered most of the continent. Blue and bronze-metal skyscrapers poked up through clumps of trees that were like giant date palms. Tributaries that eventually led to the great river wound among residential areas, passing under innumerable small bridges. Much of the broad, green plains were uninhabited. Carialle guessed that the Cridi preferred to live in a jungle environment, and leave the open spaces to the ruminants. It was all unimaginably pretty.
"Brace yourselves!" Carialle announced, feeling the restraint around her tighten. Tall Eyebrow and his two companions buckled themselves into the second crash couch, their staring eyes grim as the ship seemed to skim right over the tops of the trees. Carialle widened the view out to give them an accurate picture of their descent. They were actually still hundreds of kilometers above the ground.
Now she could see a landing strip appearing in the extreme range of her sensors. The huge, open field was lined with rows of low buildings. Ragged heaps of undifferentiated junk, half-grown over with vegetation, lay at the edges of the field, but two nearly complete spacecraft stood proudly on the wide, green plain. Perfect miniatures, the graceful spires measured about a sixth of Carialle's height.
"Not much current use," Keff commented. "I guess what Tall Eyebrow said about sparse government funding holds true even ten centuries later."
Their speed lessened again, this time sharply. The passengers surged forward in their crash seats. Keff clutched the arms of his couch and ground his molars together. Forward propulsion was down to a few hundred kilometers per minute, then a few tens, then diminished entirely. Keff had an uncomfortable feeling of weightlessness for a moment.
"I'm upending," Carialle said. And she began to drop. Keff felt his heart slide upward to his throat. He gulped. The frogs, lifted momentarily upward against their straps, exchanged nervous glances among themselves, but none made a sound. The ship fell like a stone.
"If they drop us now, we're scattered components," Carialle said. "I couldn't ignite to full burners in time to save us."
Groaning against the gravity-force upthrust, Keff huddled back in his impact couch against the thrust, his heart racing.
"The question of the day," Carialle said in Keff's ear, her voice sounding sharp with panic regardless of her calm choice of words. "Would a culture with a technology this advanced be reduced to performing manual salvage on a space-marooned hulk?"
"Doubt it," Keff gritted, trying to keep his stomach from forcing its way up his throat and out of his mouth. His heart was in the way, and they'd all come out at once. He tried to sound definite. "Hope not." He closed his eyes and clutched harder, his fingers denting the upholstery of his crash couch, hoping the chair wouldn't have to live up to its name.
The red-painted ship descended gracelessly from high atmosphere onto the junk-strewn Thelerian plain. It landed with a boom that echoed into the surrounding mountains like a bark of divine laughter and sent yellow dust swirling up toward the hot, golden-white sun. Thunderstorm and Sunset waited until the roar of the engines died away, then approached the cylindrical tower.
"Almost a temple," Sunset said, unable to keep the awe out of his voice. He was very young. Thunderstorm smiled, his bifurcated upper lip parting to show the upper row of his fiercely pointed teeth.
"But the godhead is served by strange priests, Sunset," he warned. "Remember that."
A final deafening blast of fire spread out from under the tail of the red ship, making Sunset jump, then the engines shut down. Heat haze spread out from the hull, obscuring the tall cylinder in a shimmer. A tongue-shaped portion of the ship's wall separated and swung down on hinges until the tip touched the ground. A ramp, Sunset thought, trying out the human's word in his mind. Figures appeared in the opening. Sunset would have run ahead to meet the descending aliens, but Thunderstorm rattled a wingtip at him.
"With dignity, youngster!"
Chastened, Sunset dropped behind to follow his elder. Three upright figures walked down the ramp. Two of them stopped a half dozen body-lengths short, but the tallest one came up within a single length.
"Greetings, honored ones," Thunderstorm said. He bowed low, then introduced himself, his assistants, and Sunset. "As always, we are pleased to have you here, Fisman. To what do we owe the pleasure?"
So these were humans! Sunset thought, very excited. The tallest alien, whose V-shaped torso lacked mammary protuberances, meaning that it was a male, grinned, meaning the corners of its mouth lifted, but the lip did not part in the center. What hair it had was mixed black and white. Its bare face was a narrow wedge, point down. Its mouth showed flat, white teeth like those of a rodent. He wore a smooth, slightly shiny tunic over thin covers that concealed his abdomen and limbs. Around his neck was a chain bearing many strange devices, among them a curly piece of metal with a sharpened point mounted at a perpendicular angle on a short stick, a bulbous construction mainly consisting of white glass with a shiny gray metal screw-shaped end, and a rectangular plate with characters on it in the human tongue. Sunset leaned a little closer to read it, and jumped back when the tall male made an impatient sign with his manipulative extremity-his hand hand.
"It's Bisman, damn it, Thunder, but after all these years I ought to know you still can't say your b's. Sunset, glad to meet you. This is Mirina and Zonzalo Don, brother and sister. My partner and her younger sibling. We bring you more parts, Thunder. Is this the apprentice you promised us?"
"Yes, sir."
The younger male approached only a few paces and looked down at Sunset haughtily. "Does he know his stuff?" Zonzalo asked.
Thunderstorm nudged Sunset forward.
He answered in the biped's language, carefully rehearsed for this moment. "I've memorized every component in the manuals. I know how to repair each one according to its rite. I obey orders."
"Very good," Mirina said, with a smile for Sunset. She was slightly wider in frame than her brother, and she had the proper protruberances, both front and side, of a human female. Sunset was glad. He'd been afraid he wouldn't be able to tell, and Thunderstorm had been firm about the etiquette of addressing humans correctly.
"Thank you, ma'am," Sunset said, which won him another smile from Mirina. Sunset noticed with a shock that the human had eyes of two colors arranged concentrically, with the pupil a round dot round dot in the center. How incredibly strange. Yet, her eyes were the color of loamy soil: a warm, light brown, with a black ring separating the tan from the white; and her teeth, though flat, were very white. Sunset ducked his head to keep from staring. Humans were not so unattractive after all, even though they lacked proper haunches, tails, and wings. in the center. How incredibly strange. Yet, her eyes were the color of loamy soil: a warm, light brown, with a black ring separating the tan from the white; and her teeth, though flat, were very white. Sunset ducked his head to keep from staring. Humans were not so unattractive after all, even though they lacked proper haunches, tails, and wings.
"Has he taken the Oath?" the younger male asked.
He had. Thunderstorm had adminstered it himself. Sunset remembered all the grand-sounding phrases. They came to his mind as he stood, waiting as his elders discussed him over his head: obedience, silence, competence, humility, striving towards perfection in all things, and always keeping oriented to the Center of Thelerie.
"Yes," he piped up, realizing that Zonzalo expected him to say something.
"Do you know what it means to be a member of the Melange?" Bisman asked Sunset, for the first time looking him square in the eyes. That strange round stare was disconcerting. The younger Thelerie nodded several times to recover himself.
"I do. Humans and Thelerie together form the basis of trust. Since we are different, we may blend together only those things sacred and invisible such as trust and knowledge. But in that partnership we are indissoluble, and must remain loyal to one another throughout all time. Where our travels may lead us is a test of that trust."
It was practically quoting the Manuals, but the human didn't seem to mind. He nodded, bobbing his small round head up and down.
"Good. Well, there's no time like the present. Come on, lad," Bisman said.
"Now?"
Bisman glanced at Thunderstorm with an expression that Sunset could not translate. "Yes, now. We haven't got all day. My people are ready to unload and go as soon as we're refueled. Do you want a chance to serve, or not?"
"Of course I do," Sunset said, realizing he had made a mistake. "I am eager to serve. My skills are ready, and my center is sure."
That must have been the appropriate response, because the adults turned away from him then and chatted low among themselves. Bisman tapped himself on the manipulative extremity and spoke into his wrist. From the red ship, a crew of bipeds emerged. Part of the hull peeled away to reveal a huge storage bay full of containers.
At Thunderstorm's signal, many Thelerie came forward with the heavy lifting equipment they brought from the capital city. The human crew unloaded all the goods onto the pad, well away from where the fire would lick out and consume them when it departed. The cargo consisted of spaceship parts, and Sunset recognized all of them. Only the largest one, which had to be hoisted by derrick onto a flat car, he had never seen except in the manuals. It was a primary space drive, probably the first one on Thelerie in many years. Each one was numbered, he had been told, in over a hundred places, on each of its many components. So interested was he that he didn't hear the final transaction between the elders, Thunderstorm on behalf of the Thelerie, and Bisman, the spokeshuman.
"Come on, lad," Bisman said, coming over to tap Sunset on the wingjoint above his vestigial hand. "As a member of the Melange you've got to prove yourself now. This is your quest. We're looking at another opportunity to build onto your people's space fleet, but it takes time to get to where we're going to get more parts. Can't spend time jawing." He looked at the Thelerie and their wide faces. "You've got plenty of that."
It seemed to be a joke. At least, all the humans laughed. Sunset attempted to emulate the grin, keeping the centers of his lip together. He followed his new captains toward the ship. Sunset stared at it in fascination, seeing the joints of each part interlocked with the ones on every side. And within, the components working together in harmony like...like the Melange. All was as he had studied for the last three years.
On the side of the great, red ship were hieroglyphs of the human tongue. Sunset couldn't quite make out all of them, but he recognized the word "Central."He extended his wingtip to Thunderstorm, to ask him what they were, and touched no one. Startled, he looked back over his shoulder to see his elder standing at the side of the field, not moving. Sunset opened his great wings and glided back. It was almost the last time he'd be able to do that for a while, so he enjoyed the sensation of air under his pinions.
"Come on," he urged his mentor.
"I am not coming, youngster," Thunderstorm said, with a shake of his great head.
"Why not?"
The older Thelerie reared back onto his muscular haunches and touched Sunset with a foreclaw. "My reiving days are over, lad. Go with good grace. Come back with honor."
Chapter Three.
"In ten, everybody. Ten, nine, eight..."
When Carialle's tailfins touched the ground, the passengers and Keff felt hardly a bump.
"...Two, one. Welcome to Cridi. And thank you for flying Air Carialle. Please wait until the captain has turned off the 'fasten seatbelts' sign before debarking."
Keff, who had been worried about her mental state when the Cridi took control of their flight path, was relieved at her flippancy. He took off his crash straps and stretched.
"Completely painless," Keff said to Tall Eyebrow, who timidly followed his host's lead. "No wonder your people have such a successful space program. No chance of breakup on reentry."
"No chance of missing the launch pad, either," Carialle said, activating one of her exterior cameras and tilting it downward. She had landed exactly in the middle of a round pavement surrounded by a pattern of lights laid out on the ground like a snowflake, illumination marching inward from the points.
Tall Eyebrow saluted Carialle for the safe landing.
"None of my doing, TE," she said. She noticed that his thin hands were still shaking, and made her frog image appear on the wall opposite him.
"Don't worry," she signed to him. "They'll be glad to see you."
"If only I can be certain," the Frog Prince signed back. He shook his head, a gesture of uncertainty that his people shared with humans.
"Here comes security," Keff said. "The party's beginning."
The first sight Keff had of the inhabitants of Tall Eyebrow's homeworld was the tops of helmeted and visored heads sticking out of an open vehicle that was plainly meant as field security. The flattened, molded, bulbous shape of the craft would force any missile, from thrown rocks to laser beams, to bounce upward or outward away from it. If there was anything aloft that looked more like the ancient myth of the flying saucer, Keff had yet to see it. How appropriate when the inhabitants were, verily, little green men. The thin pipes protruding from sockets in the vehicle's upper shell had to be weapons. He couldn't focus quickly enough on the moving craft to estimate whether the pipes shot solid projectiles or some other deterrent.
"I wish we could tell them we're unarmed," Keff said worriedly.
"They know," Carialle said, feeling the light sensation fluttering over all her sensors once more, this time lingering at the ends of her neural synapses. "We're being scanned again. Whew! That was thorough. Good thing I'm not ticklish. They probably also know your age, your shoe size, and how much you weigh."