"Hr-rm. We'll take a break at the next rise. By then we should be out of the worst boo."

In fact, the thickest zone was already behind them, a copse so dense the monstrous stems rubbed in the wind, creating a low, drumming music that vibrated the bones of anyone pa.s.sing underneath. Traveling single file, edging sideways where the trunks pressed closest, the party had watched for vital trail marks, cut on one rounded bole after the next.

I was right to leave Uthen behind, he thought, hoping to convince himself. Just hold on, old friend. Maybe we'll come up with something. I pray we can.

Visibility was hampered by drifting haze, since many of the tall boo leaked from water reserves high above, spraying arcs of fine droplets that spread to saturate the misty colonnade. Several times they pa.s.sed clearings where aged columns had toppled in a domino chain reaction, leaving maelstroms of debris.

Through the fog, Lark occasionally glimpsed other symbols, carved on trunks beyond the trail. Not trail marks, but cryptic emblems in GalTwo and GalSix . . . accompanied by strings of Anglic numbers.

Why would anyone-go scrawling graffiti through a stand of greatboo?

He even spied dim figures through the murk-once a human, then several urs, and finally a pair of traeki- glimpsed prowling amid rows of huge green pillars. At least he hoped the tapered cones were traeki. They vanished like ghosts before he could tell for sure.

Sergeant Shen kept the party moving too fast to investigate. Lark and his prisoner had been summoned by two of the High Sages-a command that overruled any other priority. And despite the difficult terrain, recent news from the Glade of Gathering was enough to put vigor in their steps.

Runners reported that the Jophur dreadnought still blocked the sacred valley, squatting complacently inside its swathe of devastation, with the captive Rothen ship doubly imprisoned nearby-first by a gold coc.o.o.n, and now a rising lake as well. The Jophur daily sent forth a pair of smaller vessels, sky-prowling daggers, surveying the Slope and the seas beyond. No one knew what the star G.o.ds were looking for.

Despite what happened on the night the great ship landed-havoc befalling Asx and others on the Glade-the High Sages were preparing to send another emba.s.sy of brave volunteers, hoping to parley. No one asked Lark to serve as an envoy. The Sages had other duties planned for him.

Humans weren't the only ones to cheat a little, when their founding generation came to plant a taboo colony on forbidden Jijo.

For more than a year after it made landfall, the Tabernacles crew delayed sending their precious ship to an ocean abyss. A year spent using G.o.d tools to cut trees and print books . . . then storing the precious volumes in a stronghold that the founders carved beneath a great stone overhang, protected by high walls and a river. During those early days-especially the urrish and qheuen wars-Biblos Fortress served as a vital refuge until humans grew strong enough to demand respect.

The Gray Queens also once had such a citadel, sculpted by mighty engines when they first arrived, before their sneakship fell beneath the waves. The Caves of Snood, near present-day Ovoom Town, must have seemed impregnable. But. that maze of deep-hewn caverns drowned under a rising water table when blue and red workers dropped their slavish maintenance duties, wandering off instead to seek new homes and destinies, apart from their chitin empresses.

Dooden Mesa was the oldest of the sooner ramparts. After Tarek Town, it formed the heart of g'Kek life on Jijo, a place of marvelous stone ramps that curved like graceful filigrees, allowing the wheeled ones to swoop and careen through a swirl of tight turns, from their looms and workshops to tree-sheltered platforms where whole families slept with their hubs joined in slowly rotating cl.u.s.ters. Under an obscuring blur-cloth canopy, the meandering system resembled pictures found in certain Earthling books about pre-contact times-looking like a cross between an "amus.e.m.e.nt park" and the freeway interchanges of some sprawling city.

Ling's face brightened with amazed delight when she regarded the settlement, nodding as Lark explained the lacy pattern of narrow byways. Like Biblos, Dooden Rampart was not meant to last forever, for that would violate the Covenant of Exile. Someday it all would have to go- g'Kek elders conceded. Still, the wheeled ones throbbed their spokes in sinful pride over their beloved city. Their home.

While Ling marveled, Lark surveyed the busy place with fresh poignancy.

This their only home.

Unless the Rothen lied, it seems there are no more g'Kek living among the Five Galaxies.

If they die on Jijo, they are gone for good.

Watching youngsters pitch along graceful ramps with reckless abandon, streaking round corners with all four eyestalks flying and their rims glowing hot, Lark could not believe the universe would let that happen. How could any race so unique be allowed to go extinct?

With the boo finally behind them, the party now stood atop a ridge covered with normal forest. As they paused, a zookir dropped onto the path from the branches of a nearby garu tree-all spindly arms and legs, covered with white spirals of fluffy torg. Treasured aides and pets of the g'Kek, zookirs helped make life bearable for wheeled beings on a planet where roads were few and stumbling stones all too many.

This zookir squinted at the party, then scampered closer, sniffing. Unerringly, it bypa.s.sed the other humans, zeroing in on Lark.

Trust a zookir to know a sage-so went a folk saying. No one had any idea how the creatures could tell, since they seemed less clever than chimps in other ways. Lark's promotion was recent and he wore the new status of "junior sage" uncomfortably, yet the creature had no trouble setting him apart. It pressed damp nostrils against his wrist and inhaled. Then, cooing satisfaction, it slipped a folded parchment in Lark's hand.

MEET US AT THE REFUGE-That was all it said.

RPAIR OF HIGH SAGES WAITED IN A NARROW CANyon, half a league away. Lester Cambel and Knife-Bright Insight, the blue qheuen whose reputation for compa.s.sion made her a favorite among the Six.

Here, too, the paths were smooth and well suited for g'Keks, since this was part of their Dooden Domain. Wheeled figures moved among the meadows, looking after protected ones who lived in thatched shelters beneath the trees. It was a refuge for sacred simpletons-those whose existence promised a future for the Six Races-according to the scrolls. , Several of the blessed ones gathered around Knife-Bright

Insight, clucking or mewing in debased versions of Galac- i tic tongues. These were hoons and urs, for the most part, though a red qheuen joined the throng as Lester watched, and several traeki stacks slithered timidly closer, burbling happy stinks as they approached. Each received a loving pat or stroke from Knife-Bright Insight, as if her claws were gentle hands.

Lester regarded his colleague, and knew guiltily that he could never match her glad kindness. The blessed were superior beings, ranking above the normal run of the Six. Their simplicity was proof that other races could follow the example of glavers, treading down the Path of Redemption.

It should fill my heart to see them, he thought.

Yet I hate coming to this place.

Members of all six races dwelled in simple shelters underneath the canyon walls, tended by local g'Keks, plus volunteers from across the Slope. Whenever a qheuen, or hoon, or urrish village found among their youths one who had a knack for innocence, a gift for animal-like naivete, the lucky individual was sent here for nurturing and study.

There are just two ways to escape the curse bequeathed to us by our ancestors, Lester thought, struggling to believe. We could do as Lark's group of heretics want-stop breeding and leave Jijo in peace. Or else we can all seek a different kind of oblivion, the kind that returns our children's children to presentience. Washed clean and ready for a new cycle of uplift. Thus they may yet find new patrons, and perhaps a happier fate.

So prescribed the Sacred Scrolls, even after all the compromises wrought since the arrival of Earthlings and the Holy Egg. Given the situation of exile races, living here on borrowed time, facing horrid punishment if,when a Galactic Inst.i.tute finds them here, what other goal could there be?

But I can't do it. I cannot look at this place with joy. Earthling values keep me from seeing these creatures as l.u.s.trous beings. They deserve kindness and pity-but not envy.

It was his own heresy. Lester tried to look elsewhere. But turning just brought to view another cl.u.s.ter of "blessed." This time, humans, gathered in a circle under a ilhuna tree, sitting cross-legged with hands on knees, chanting in low, sonorous voices. Men and women whose soft smiles and unshifting eyes seemed to show simplicity of the kind sought here . . . only Lester knew them to be liars!

Long ago, he took the same road. Using meditation techniques borrowed from old Earthling religions, he sat under just such a tree, freeing his mind of worldly obsessions, disciplining it to perceive Truth. And for a while it seemed he succeeded. Acolytes bowed reverently, calling him illuminated. The universe appeared lucid then, as if the stars were sacred fire. As if he were united with all Jijo's creatures, even the very quanta in the stones around him. He lived in harmony, needing little food, few words, and even fewer names.

Such serenity-sometimes he missed it with an ache inside.

But after a while he came to realize-the clarity he had found was sterile blankness. A blankness that felt fine, but had nothing to do with redemption. Not for himself. Not for his race.

The other five don't use discipline or concentration to seek simplicity. You don't see glavers meditating by a rotten log full of tasty insects. Simplicity calls to them naturally. They live their innocence.

When Jijo is finally reopened, some great clan will gladly adopt the new glaver subspecies, setting them once more upon the High Path, perhaps with better luck than they bad the first time.

But those patrons won't choose us. No n.o.ble elder clan is looking for smug Zen masters, eager to explain their own enlightenment. That is not a plainness you can write upon. It is simplicity based on individual pride.

Of course the point might be moot. If the Jophur ship represented great Inst.i.tutes of the Civilization of the Five Galaxies, these forests would soon throng with inspectors, tallying up two thousand years of felonies against a fallow world. Only glavers would be safe, having made it to safety in time. The other six races would pay for a gamble lost.

And if they don't represent the Inst.i.tutes?

The Rothen had proved to be criminals, gene raiders. Might the Jophur be more of the same? Murderous genocide could still be in store. The g'Kek clan, in particular, were terrified of recent news from the Glade.

On the other hand, it might be possible to cut a deal. Or else maybe they'll just go away, leaving us in the same state we were in before.

In that case, places like this refuge would go back to being the chief hope for tomorrow ... for five races out of the Six.

Lester's dark thoughts were cut off by a tug on his sleeve.

"Sage Cambel? The . . . um, visitors you're, ah, expecting ... I think . . -."

It was a young human, broad-cheeked, with clear blue eyes and pale skin. The boy would have seemed tall- almost a giant-except that a stooped posture diminished his appearance. He kept tapping a corner of his forehead with the fingertips of his right hand, as if in a vague salute.

Lester spoke gentle words in Anglic, the only language the lad ever managed to learn.

"What did you say, Jimi?"

The boy swallowed, concentrating hard.

"I think the . . . um . . . the people you want t'see ... I think they're here . . . Sage Cambel."

"Lark and the Danik woman?"

A vigorous nod.

"Um, yessir. I sent 'em to the visitors' shed ... to wait for you an' the other Great Sage. Was that right?"

"Yes, that was right, Jimi." Lester gave his arm a friendly squeeze. "Please go back now. Tell Lark I'll be along shortly."

A broad grin. The boy turned around to run the way he came, awkward in his eagerness to be useful.

There goes the other kind of human who comes to this place, Lester thought. Our special ones . . .

The ancient euphemism tasted strange.

At first sight, it would seem people like Jimi fit the bill. Simpler minds. Innocent. Our ideal envoys to tread the Path.

He glanced at the blessed ones surrounding Knife-Bright Insight-urs, hoons, and g'Keks who were sent here by their respective races in order to do that. To lead the way.

By the standards of the scrolls, these ones aren 't damaged. Though simple, they aren't flawed. They are leaders. But no one can say that of Jimi. All sympathy aside, he is injured, incomplete. Anyone can see that.

We can and should love him, help him, befriend him.

But he leads humanity nowhere.

Lester signaled to his blue qheuen colleague, using an urslike shake of his head to indicate that their appointment had arrived. She responded by turning her visor cupola in a quick series of GalTwo winks, flashing that she'd be along shortly.

Lester turned and followed Jimi's footsteps, trying to shift his thoughts back to the present crisis. To the problem of the Jophur battleship. Back to urgent plans he must discuss with the young heretic and the woman from the stars. There was a dire proposal-farfetched and darkly dangerous-they must be asked to accept.

Yet, as he pa.s.sed by the chanting circle of meditating humans-healthy men and women who had abandoned their farms, families, and useful crafts to dwell without work in this sheltered valley-Lester found his contemplations awash with bitter resentment. The words in his head were unworthy of a High Sage, he knew. But he could not help pondering them.

Morons and mediators, those are the two types that our race sends up here. Not a true "blessed" soul in the lot. Not by the standards set in the scrolls. Humans almost never take true steps down redemption's path. Ur-Jah and the others are polite. They pretend that we, too, have that option, that potential salvation.

But we don't. Our lot is sterile.

With or without judgment from the stars-the only future humans face on Jijo is d.a.m.nation.

Dwer SMOKE SPIRALED FROM THE CRASH SITE. IT WAS against his better judgment to sneak closer. In fact, now was his chance to run the other way, while the Danik robot cowered in a hole, showing no further interest in its prisoners.

And if Rety wanted to stay?

Let her! Lena and Jenin would be glad to see Dwer if he made the long journey back to the Gray Hills. That should be possible with his trusty bow in hand. True, Rety needed him, but those up north had better claim on his loyalty.

Dwer's senses still throbbed from the din of the brief battle, when the mighty Danik scoutship was shot down by a terrifying newcomer. Both vessels lay beyond the next dune, sky chariots of unfathomable power . . . and Rety urged him to creep closer still!

"We gotta find out what's going on," she insisted in a harsh whisper.

He gave her a sharp glance, demanding silence, and for once she complied, giving him a moment to think.

Lena and Jenin may be safe for a while, now that Kunn won't be returning to plague them. If the Daniks and Rothens have enemies on Jijo, all the star G.o.ds may be too busy fighting each other to hunt a little band in the Gray Hills.

Even without guidance from Danel Ozawa, Lena Strong was savvy enough to make a three-way deal, with Rety's old band and the urrish sooners. Using Danel's "legacy," their combined tribe might plant a seed to flourish in the wilderness. a.s.suming the worst happened back home on the Slope, their combined band might yet find its way to the Path.

Dwer shook his head. He sometimes found it hard to concentrate. Ever since letting the robot use his body as a conduit for its fields, it felt as if voices whispered softly at the edge of hearing. As when the crazy old mule spider used to wheedle into his thoughts.

Anyway, it wasn't his place to ponder destiny, or make sagelike decisions. Some things were obvious. He might not owe Rety anything. She may deserve to be abandoned to her fate. But he couldn't do that.

So, despite misgivings, Dwer nodded to the girl, adding with emphatic hand motions that she had better not make a single sound. She replied with a happy shrug that seemed to say, Sure . . . until I decide otherwise.

Slinging his bow and quiver over one shoulder, he led the way forward, creeping from one gra.s.sy clump to the next, till they reached the crest of the dune. Cautiously they peered through a cl.u.s.ter of salty fronds to stare down at two sky vessels-the smaller a smoldering ruin, half submerged in a murky swamp. The larger ship, nestled nearby, had not escaped the fracas unscarred. It bore a deep fissure along one flank that belched soot whenever the motors tried to start.

Two men lay prostrate on a marshy islet, barely moving.

Kunn and Ja.s.s.

Dwer and Rety scratched a new hole to hide in, then settled down to see who-or what-would emerge next.

They did not wait long. A hatch split the large cylinder, baring a dark interior. Through it floated a single figure, startlingly familiar-an eight-sided pillar with dangling arms-close cousin to the damaged robot Dwer knew all too well. Only this one gleamed with stripes of alternating blue and pink, a pattern Dwer found painful to behold.

It also featured a hornlike projection on the bottom, aimed downward. That must be what lets it travel over water, he thought. If the robot is similar, could that mean Kunn's enemies are human, too?

But no, Danel had said that machinery was standard among the half a million starfaring races, changing only slowly with each pa.s.sing eon. This new drone might belong to anybody.

The automaton neared Kunn and Ja.s.s, a searchlight playing over their bodies, vivid even in bright sunshine. Their garments rippled, frisked by translucent fingers. Then the robot dropped down, arms outstretched. Kunn and Ja.s.s lay still as it poked, prodded, and lifted away with several objects in its pincers.

A signal must have been given, for a ramp then jutted from the open hatch, slanting to the bog. Who's going to go traipsing around in that stuff? Dwer wondered. Are they going to launch a boat?

He girded for some weird alien race, one with thirteen legs perhaps, or slithering on trails of slime. Several great clans had been known as foes of humankind, even in the Tabernacles day, such as the legendary Soro, or the insectlike Tandu. Dwer even nursed faint hope that the newcomers might be from Earth, come all this vast distance to rein in their criminal cousins. There were also relatives of hoons, urs, and qheuens out there, each with ships and vast resources at their command.

Figures appeared, twisting down the ramp into the open air.

Rety gasped. "Them's traekis!"

Dwer stared at a trio of formidable-looking ring stacks, with bandoliers of tools hanging from their toroids-of-manipulation. The tapered cones reached muddy water and settled in. Abruptly, the flipper legs that seemed awkward on the ramp propelled them with uncanny speed toward the two survivors.

"But ain't traekis s'posed to be peaceful?"

They are, Dwer thought, wishing he had paid more attention to the lessons his mother used to give Sara and Lark. Readings from obscure books that went beyond what you were taught in school. He reached back for a name, but came up empty. Yet he knew a name existed. One that inspired fear, once-upon-a-time.

"I don't-" he whispered, then shook his head firmly. "I don't think these are traeki. At least not like anyone's seen here in a very long while."

Alvin THE SCENE WAS HARD TO INTERPRET AT FIRST. HAZY blue-green images jerked rapidly, sending shivers down my still-unsteady spine. Huck and Pincer seemed to catch on more quickly, pointing at various objects in the" picture display, sharing knowing grunts. The experience reminded me of our trip on Wuphon's Dream, when poor Alvin the Hoon was always the last one to grok what was going on.

Finally, I realized-we were viewing a faraway locale, back in the world of sunshine and rain!

(How many times have Huck and I read about some storybook character looking at a distant place by remote control? It's funny. A concept can be familiar from novels, yet rouse awe when you finally encounter it in real life.) Daylight streamed through watery shallows where green fronds waved in a gentle tide. Schools of flicking, silvery shapes darted past-species that our fishermen brought home in nets, destined for the drying racks and stewpots of hoonish khutas.