The Candle of Distant Earth (23 page)

There was no impressive ceremony of departure. For all their individual size and strength, and for all the accomplishments of their advanced society, the Tuuqalians were a modest folk. Accompanied by a Braouk reenergized by his return to his homeworld, the travelers were farewelled simply and efficiently and waved on their way. All of it recorded for posterity and with suitably breathless commentary by the ever effervescent representatives of the Niyyuu media, of course.

But there was nothing modest about the four vessels that had moved into orbit proximate to those of the Niyyuu and the Iollth. Even the combative Iollth were impressed, if not actually awed. Each of the arriving Tuuqalian craft was larger than any several Niyyuuan or Iollth ships combined.

Perhaps it was inevitable that a certain tension ensued. It did not last long, as representatives of both of the travelers' allies were immediately invited to tour the newest additions to the expedition. The blocky, multi-cube component designs of the Tuuqalian craft reflected the needs of their oversized crews rather than any military excess. Noting this, Iollth and Niyyuu alike were quickly able to relax and enjoy the educational visits. In turn, crew from the Tuuqalian quartet were invited to visit their counterparts. While this was manageable on the larger Niyyuuan craft, including the
Jhevn-Bha,
all visits to the five Iollth ships had to be conducted virtually, since none featured internal corridors expansive enough to allow the passage of even a small Tuuqalian.

The exchange of visits and information was followed by a small designated chorus of composers on board the Tuuqalian vessels who commenced creating a special saga to commemorate the unusual coming together. By the end of the first day of continuous and unrelenting recitation, Iollth and Niyyuu alike were more than ready to begin the next stage of the journey.

Navigators provided the necessary equations to ensure that the ships from three different worlds maintained constant speed and contact during the crossing from Tuuqalia to K'erem. When these were executed, the consequences would have been an impressive sight to observe from any other vessel in orbit. Twelve ships featuring the most advanced engineering skills of three different sentient species, all departing simultaneously from the vicinity of Tuuqalia. There would be no noise, of course, but Walker was informed that the synchronized ignition of a dozen interstellar drives should be bright enough to be visible from Tuuqalia's surface.

He was not in a position to witness it, choosing to while away the time in his living quarters on board the
Jhevn-Bha
until the galactic flotilla was well under way. Though soon cleared to move about, he found that he had no urge to do so. Far more sensitive to his companion's frame of mind than anyone else, George leaped up onto Walker's makeshift bed and settled himself down beside his friend.

“Okay—
now
what's wrong?” One paw rubbed down an ear. “I swear, it's always been a wonder to me that the whole human species hasn't died out from a surfeit of excessive moodiness.”

Walker had to smile. Reaching down, he ruffled the fur on the back of George's neck. In response, the dog rolled over onto his back and presented for attention his far less hirsute belly. Without thinking, Walker obliged, staring at the blank, pale beige ceiling as he caressed the dog's underside. On the far side of the living quarters the Niyyuu had modified to suit the needs of their singular guests, Sque lay flattened out in her makeshift artificial pond with only her head and upper body visible above the dark, brine-infused water.

Though there was room enough for Braouk to join them, their Tuuqalian companion was not present, having understandably chosen to spend time aboard a ship of his own people among his own kind. He would rejoin them again, Walker had been assured, as soon as they entered orbit around K'erem. After all, it would do nothing to advance the work on his ongoing saga if he remained separated from them at such moments.

“I'm just tired, George. Tired of traveling, tired of strange places and peoples. Tired of trying to keep my spirits up when nobody has ever heard of Earth or has any idea where it might be.”

“That is not entirely true.”

As he turned onto his right side, Walker forced a grumbling George to adjust his own position accordingly. Slinking silently, Sque had emerged from her pond and ambled over to join them. Reaching over the bed, the flexible tip of one tentacle rested against the human's sternum.

“C'mon, Sque,” Walker murmured. “You really don't think your people know where Earth is, do you?”

“I admit that there is no reason why they should.” The pink speaking tube wove and danced as she spoke, like the wriggling bait of an anglerfish. “Your world has no contact with the civilizations of the galaxy, therefore the civilizations of the galaxy have no contact with it, save for the occasional isolated and highly informal visit by such as the Vilenjji. But you must not underestimate the abilities of the K'eremu. My people are, as you already know, intellectually superior in every way to any species you have thus far encountered.”

“Sez you,” declared an unapologetic George, unwilling to let the blanket avowal go unchallenged.

As usual, it was left to Walker to maintain the peace. “You've frequently demonstrated your own cerebral gifts to us during the time we've spent together, Sque. And I'm not doubting that there are individuals among your kind who equal and even exceed your own abilities.”

“One must not concede to excess,” the K'eremu corrected him primly. “However, there are certainly specialists in such fields as astronautics whose experience in those areas is greater than mine. Strive as one might, one cannot claim to be an authority on everything.”

As George was about to respond, Walker gently but firmly used his right hand to cover the dog's snout and clamp his jaws together. He continued the conversation, ignoring the claws that pawed irritably at his grip.

“You really think there's a chance that your scientists can find Earth?”

She drew herself up and swelled importantly, bubbles of emphasis spewing intermittently from her speaking tube. “Remember that I remarked a moment ago that it was ‘not entirely true' that no one had any idea where your homeworld lies.” Several limbs gestured toward the hovering image that supplied the room's only external view. “We know that we are in the right region of the galaxy, because the Vilenjji took the Tuuqalian Braouk, myself, and the two of you from worlds in the same general vicinity. We know that from comparing the relative elapsed time between our abductions.”

“A ‘vicinity' hundreds, if not thousands, of light-years in extent,” George pointed out crustily as he finally succeeded in twisting his jaws free of Walker's constraining grasp.

“That is still something,” Sque argued. “Better to have hundreds or thousands of light-years to search than a million. Better to know that such a search is commencing on the correct side of the galaxy. I reiterate: do not underestimate the skills of my people.”

“I'm not underestimating them,” Walker insisted. “I'm just trying to be realistic about the scope and difficulty of the undertaking.” His voice dropped to a murmur. “No matter what happens, it ought to provide more good material for the saga Braouk is composing, anyway.”

She gestured with a pair of appendages. “That attitude, at least, is sensible.”

“What about you, Sque? I've been watching you ever since we left the Tuuqalian system. You don't seem to be very excited at the thought of finally returning home.”

“I am thrilled beyond imagination,” she responded in her usual measured tones. “I am eager to the point of self-voiding. Every sentient reveals such feelings in the manner unique to their species. The K'eremu are not what you would call overly demonstrative. But I assure you that I have, since the day of my abduction, not failed to count the moments until I might once again sprawl tranquil and flaccid in the bowels of my own dwelling.” Her lengthwise pupils regarded him unblinkingly.

“Having in the course of the time we have spent together learned enough about me and my kind, you will understand, of course, when I do not invite you to share that particular space with me for more than the least amount of time that is considered minimally polite.”

Walker nodded understandingly. “The K'eremu passion for individual privacy. We wouldn't think of intruding.” He looked down to his left. “Would we, George?”

“Why would anyone want to?” the dog muttered. “I can find damp, dark, stinky, and claustrophobic on my own. I don't need an invitation.”

“Then all will be well.” Sque slipped backward a body length or so, the end of her limb withdrawing from contact with the human's chest. “Though it may be difficult and time-consuming to assemble together a sufficiency of authority to render the necessary decisions to assist you in your search, I am confident that I can do so. By aiding me in my escape from the Vilenjji…”

“Now just a minute,” George began angrily, “just who aided who?”

“…you have caused my society to incur a corresponding debt. As every K'eremu life is unique and irreplaceable, the munificent gesture you have made must be reciprocated. It constitutes a debt that cannot be ignored. Appropriate assistance will be forthcoming. I will see to it.” Leaving that assurance hanging in the air, she scurried rather magisterially back to her tank.

Walker rolled over onto his back again. Though Sque was an insufferable egotist, she had more than once proven herself a true friend. He had no doubt she would be as good as her word. The uncertainty that nagged at him revolved not around her, but her kind.

On a world populated entirely by insufferable egotists, how did anyone, including one of their own kind, persuade them to cooperate long enough to help anyone besides themselves?

A
s with all journeys between star systems, that between Tuuqalia and far-flung K'erem was interminable and boring.
How quickly we become jaded to the extraordinary,
Walker thought. It was no different with his own civilization. Each generation came to accept as normal and natural, if not a birthright, the unqualified miracles of its predecessor. As for himself, he was privileged, or cursed, to have come to accept as ordinary such things as interstellar travel, a multitude of sentient nonhuman races, the ability to perform gastronomic wonders with some judicious waving of his hands, and other marvels any one of which would individually have been regarded back home as the discovery of the age.

A real cup of coffee, he mused. Brewed from beans as opposed to being synthesized through advanced alien chemistry. Now that truly would be a miracle he could worship.

Having spent so much time in the company of the redoubtable Sequi'aranaqua'na'senemu and listening to her never-ending descriptions of her homeworld—the finest and most engaging in the galaxy, of course—he was not surprised by his first sight of it on the internal viewer when the flotilla emerged from deepspace several AUs out. Shrouded in mostly low cloud broken only occasionally by open sky, it was a maze of thousands of small, low-lying landmasses. Not one of them was larger than Greenland, and few appeared, at least from space, much more hospitable.

Sque, on the other hand, was quietly ecstatic. “That I should have survived long enough to see such a sight once again,” she murmured as together she, Walker, and George viewed the images that central command caused to be relayed to all operative imagers. In front of them, efficiently mimicking the appearance of solidity, hovered a vision of K'erem about a meter in diameter; all gray terrain, scattered seas, and brooding cloud cover. “Is it not beautiful beyond all others, my home?”

Walker hastened to concur, leaving it to George to add, “Reminds me of a particularly gloomy alley I once had to seek shelter in during a winter storm.” Raising a paw, he indicated a lower corner of the image. “There's something that's not a geographical feature. It's moving too fast.”

Sque approached as close to the image as she could without actually entering and distorting it. “A ship of my people, I should expect, coming up to meet us.”

“Wouldn't there be orbit-to-ground communication first?” Walker queried her, frowning slightly.

She turned toward him. “I am sure the redoubtable Commander-Captain Gerlla-hyn, his contact team, and the committed communications caste of the Iollth have been attempting to do exactly that ever since we arrived within suitable range. They are, however, not as familiar with the customs of my kind as are you. Establishing contact from the surface would imply acceptance of arrival.”

“In case you and your aloof kinfolk haven't noticed,” George commented dryly, “we've already arrived. It's a fatal accompli.”

“You have only arrived physically. Until proper communication is established, you have not arrived in the minds of the K'eremu. Hence the custom of making first greeting an extra-atmospheric one.” Pivoting once more to face the suspended planetary image, she studied it anew. “Definitely a ship.”

“One ship?” A curious Walker also focused his attention on the lower corner of the image.

This time she replied without looking over at him. “One ship is enough. One ship is always enough.”

He was not surprised by her observation. From the years he had spent in her company, Walker knew that irrespective of the situation, Sque was unable to make a distinction between being completely self-assured or unreservedly overconfident. There was no in-between. Evidently, it was the same with all K'eremu.

What did surprise him, not to mention take his breath away, was the appearance of the K'eremu ship. While those of the Tuuqalia, Niyyuu, and Iollth differed in design, all were at heart functional and efficient, the end product of work by mathematicians and engineers. Rising from the cloudy surface of the planet below, the single approaching K'eremu craft was—unexpectedly beautiful.

It was not simply a matter of execution. The attention to external aesthetics was deliberate. Svelte and slippery where the construction of the visiting starships was blocky and rough, the ship looked more like the focal pendant of a gigantic brooch. Multi-hued lights of every color flashed in imaginative patterns from its molded flanks: a detail, he realized, that duplicated stylistically if not functionally the strands of metal and other materials with which Sque daily adorned her own person. Just as they contrasted sharply with her own mottled maroon skin and shape, so the artistic affectations that encrusted the gunmetal gray-black body of the K'eremu starship stood out sharply against its glossy-smooth sides. Compared to the singular sleekness of the new arrival, the space-traversing vessels of the three visiting races looked ungainly and bloated. The sheer beauty of the K'eremu craft was intimidating. He could not help wondering if the effect was intentional.

Despite its gratuitously lustrous appearance, he had no doubt it was fully functional—as would be any weapons it carried. Whether the latter could hold their own against the combined firepower of, say, twelve visiting vessels representing the apex of science as practiced within three different systems he did not know. But if it was all in the last analysis an exhibition of supreme (or foolish) overconfidence, it constituted a bluff of which any trader on the exchange back home would have been unashamedly proud.

He did not bother to inquire of Sque if that was actually the case. That was a matter for Gerlla-hyn and his fellow tacticians among the Iollth and the Tuuqalia to decide.

Perhaps not by themselves, however. Their living quarters' communicator promptly filled the room with a request for the guest traveler Sequi'aranaqua'na'senemu to please report to ship communications, so that she might aid in furthering formal contact with her people.

“Late,” she commented as she turned to comply. “The call for my assistance should have be made the instant the contact craft was detected rising from the surface.”

“Maybe sensors didn't pick it up it until just now,” Walker pointed out as he slipped off his bed and moved to join her.

Turning to look up at him, she continued scuttling on her way. When one is equipped with ten limbs spaced equidistantly around one's body, every point of the compass is equally easy to access.

“The contact vessel would have made its presence known immediately after liftoff, so that there would be no confusion among visitors as to its nature. That there has been no panicky shooting speaks well of our escort.” She expanded to twice normal size, then contracted. “Even at this point in time, when contact is imminent, I find it hard to countenance that I will soon be again conversing with my own kind.”

“Bet you can't wait for it,” George declared, muting his usual cynicism.

“I anticipate it with boundless glee,” she confessed as they moved out into the corridor and started toward the section of the
Jhevn-bha
where Command was located. “A day or two of unbridled conversation and contact. Then travel to my own residence, that I can only hope has been preserved, followed by thorough immersion in a period of blissful extended solitude.”

Walker shook his head. Their obvious intelligence notwithstanding, it never ceased to amaze him how a species as ferociously introverted as the K'eremu had managed to build a viable civilization, much less one capable of interstellar travel. Strikingly attractive interstellar travel, if the ship that had now joined the visiting flotilla was not a deliberate aberration. Wondering if the interior was as extravagantly decorated as the outside, he hoped they might be offered the opportunity to visit.

They were not. Permission to board was explicitly refused. Indeed, Sque appeared somewhat put out by the Niyyuuan officer who ventured to make the request. The denial was not reflective, she explained, of any kind of overt hostility. As her human, canine, and Tuuqalian companions could attest, the K'eremu simply were not fond of company, under any circumstances.

Though on the face of it that observation seemed to portend difficulty in expanding further contact, the contrary proved to be the case. In fact, it was much easier to obtain permission to land on K'erem than it had been to visit Tuuqalia. While the precise nature of the permission granted was the exact opposite of effusive, the necessary formalities were executed swiftly and efficiently. Anyone who wanted to visit the surface would be allowed to do so—although in the absence of a local guide such as Sque, their movements would be severely circumscribed.

As representatives not only of the visiting vessels but of their own adverse situation, Walker and George were included in the first landing party. So was Braouk, who eagerly anticipated adding whole stanzas to his ongoing saga. Sobj-oes and her assistant Habr-wec were added along with representatives of the Iollth and Tuuqalian scientific staffs, in the hope that work could begin immediately utilizing the knowledge of their K'eremu counterparts in the search for the unknown world called Earth.

Descending to the surface via shuttle, Walker was struck by the dearth of lights on the nightside. While not actually surprised by the lack of any visible proof for the existence of urban concentrations, familiar as he was thanks to Sque with the K'eremu dislike of crowds, the complete nonexistence of any such suggested a primitive and backward society, which he knew for a fact the K'eremu were not. The construction of complex apparatus such as starships, for example, required extensive manufacturing facilities incorporating functioning high technology.

“Like our dwellings, we prefer to sequester such things below the surface,” she informed him when he inquired about the apparent ambiguity. “Also, a great deal of our industrial complex is highly mechanized. More so even than what you saw on Seremathenn.” Silver-gray eyes only slightly more vibrant than the clouds they were preparing to penetrate looked up at him. “Surely you did not envision my kind toiling away in the heat and repetition of a common industrial plant?”

Secured in a nearby landing seat that had been specially adapted to accommodate his diminutive form, George glanced over. “Yeah, Marc, what were you thinking? Imagine a K'eremu deigning to get its tentacles dirty with manual labor!”

As usual, the dog's sarcasm was lost on Sque, who simply accepted the canine observation as a statement of fact. “Precisely the point. All such activities on K'erem have been automated for a very long time indeed. They are appropriately supervised, and provide adequately for the needs of the population.”

It certainly explained the absence of lights, Walker reflected as the rapidly descending Niyyuuan shuttle simultaneously entered atmosphere and daylight. Also the scarcity of any aboveground structures of consequence. Instead of cities, they passed low over rocky, heavily weathered islands and a few larger landmasses. Vegetation was abundant, but tended to be twisted and low to the ground. There were no jungles, no tall forests—at least, none that were visible to the shuttle's sensors. Here and there a single, unexpectedly tall tree or analogous local growth shot skyward like a solitary spire, a dark green landmark isolated in an otherwise endless heath- and moor-like landscape.

Reflecting the want of urbanization, there did not even appear to be a designated landing facility. That only revealed itself when, in response to their arrival and patient hovering, a portion of rocky terrain irised open to divulge a dry and expansive subterranean port. Descending in response to lackluster but adequate instruction from below, the shuttle settled gently to touchdown. Engines died. After years in Vilenjji captivity and additional ones spent in sometimes hopeful, sometimes despairing wandering, Sque had come home.

Almost, Walker decided. No doubt there were still formalities to be concluded. Hopefully, they would not involve anything as intimidating as those they had been forced to deal with on Tuuqalia, or as complex as those they had adapted to on Niyu.

First impressions certainly hinted at a different approach. As they emerged from the shuttle, their formal arrival on K'erem being thoroughly documented by the ever present Niyyuuan media, Walker and his friends were greeted by—nothing. Not only was no crowd or group present to welcome one of their own back to the communal fold, there was not even a single official present to direct them to the proper office. Bemused, Walker glanced upward. Though an unseen, unsensed field of some kind kept the fine mist that was falling from entering the landing facility, the air within was still noticeably cool and damp. Optimum climate for a K'eremu, he knew, drawing his lightweight clothing a little tighter around him. Of his friends, only he felt a chill. Braouk and George both came equipped with their own built-in insulation. Still, he was not alone in his climatic sensitivity. Both the hairless Niyyuu and short-furred Iollth were similarly affected.