Primordium, p.11
Primordium, page 11
Obviously, before Riser took me under his tutelage.
I blinked and looked around. The boat continued to rock in a gentle swell. We were now far from either shore, out in the middle of the sea, and yet swift, steady ripples were touching us, orienting the boat parallel with their troughs—something disturbing the water not far away. The ripples began to subside but were then met with new ripples coming from the opposite direction.
Vinnevra woke next—Gamelpar slept like a stone and it took a rather rough shaking to rouse him. We looked both directions, trying to see what might be causing the disturbances. “They’re just waves,” she concluded, but I could tell the difference. The longer, straighter waves were not the same—larger, wider, they were reflections from the uneven shoreline. Their rhythm had lulled us to sleep. These new ones had awakened us.
Something gray and gleaming humped the water a dozen meters away, then withdrew, starting another round of slickly perfect undulations. Then the surface was all confused as a downdraft of cool air fell around our boat and created a wide roughening.
“Merse,” I said. “The lake is full of merse. The Lifeshaper loves them.”
Vinnevra and Gamelpar didn’t understand what merse were. I started to explain, but then a great, greenish black fin rose up just beside our boat, touching the side, spinning us around gently enough—and sinking again, like the tip of a huge knife.
I grasped the side and darted looks in all directions.
“Crocodile,” I suggested next, but I had never heard of crocodiles with fins. Only fish and river dolphins, and this was much bigger than anything I had ever seen in a river. It did not take long for another hump to rise nearby, also slick and green. The fin seemed to flow under the water to join that smoothness—then, all together, the huge shape slid beneath our boat.
“My best wife spoke of sea creatures big as villages,” Gamelpar said. “The Lady could have brought them here. She brought us here, didn’t she?”
The rounded shape and a pair of long fins roiled the water about a hundred meters off, departing rapidly.… And that made me peer down through the clear water, down and down—to see another paleness, like the one that had approached us under the suspended town, the same color but even larger, not so far beneath us and stretching to all sides like an island trying to rise.
The others saw it as well, and held on to each other. The paleness broke water on both sides of us—but what it was precisely that broke the water, I could not tell. I immediately feared the worst—that something like the mashed-together lump in the Forerunner cage had somehow gotten loose and occupied this sea, filling it everywhere, collecting everything that lived but still hungrily seeking more creatures to add, until it rose up as high as the edge wall itself.
But as I studied the paleness, I saw it had its own nature, its own original strangeness, and I knew, somehow, it was no product of the Shaping Sickness. To my right, a rounded, lobe-edged appendage, purple and blue in color, emerged from the water in a slow roll, sweeping up and around. At the end of each lobe protruded a finer series of lobes, and at the end of each of those lobes, the same, until the outermost seemed to be covered with fuzz.
On the other side of our boat rose another.
The flesh that made these lobes was like milky glass shot through with bubbles … yet not bubbles, for they seemed to contain gently shining rolling jewels, like little sacs of treasure.
These manifestations were beautiful beyond my ability to describe them, even now.
For hours, as we drifted, these shapes and a bewildering number of variations swept up and down, perhaps observing us, perhaps ushering us along, who could tell? But never did they try to reach out and snatch us from the boat, nor did they ever come close to capsizing us.
“What are they?” Vinnevra asked.
“The sea is rich,” Gamelpar said when he had recovered his speech, after our fear had departed, leaving only numb wonder. Neither of us had any answer—nor did the old spirits within us. The reach of the Forerunners, it seemed, had so far exceeded that of humans that we could cross this wheel and climb up the sky bridge, and back down again, and never see an end to the Lady’s collections, her accumulated wonders. Why had she gone to such lengths?
“They—or it—have been gathered by the Lifeshaper,” I said. “She keeps some of her favorites here.”
“More favored than you and me?” Gamelpar asked.
If this was the Master Builder’s wheel, this great weapon that was also a zoo, a refuge for humans—then had the Lifeshaper partnered with him as well as with the Didact? Did she serve two masters?
Or did they all serve her?
The water had calmed, the lobed fans had disappeared, the water beneath was black into its depths.
* * *
The next afternoon, we slowly drifted past something I thought we should have certainly seen from a considerable distance—a great, cone-shaped structure, dark gray, rising from the calm salt sea perhaps three or four hundred meters. Smooth but not shiny, it had no apparent texture or detail; it was disturbingly perfect, even for a Forerunner object. Water lapped around its broad base, and a twisting streamer of cloud lazed around its pinnacle.
The currents swept our little boat around it and the great gray cone gradually receded, until, abruptly, it was no longer there—blink, and it was gone.
More Forerunner magic.
“The wheel is looking for its soul,” Gamelpar concluded. “It’s waking up again and deciding what it wants to be.”
That got me thinking. The cone might have been a quick sketch for a Forerunner power station. I had seen one of those back on Erde-Tyrene, smaller but roughly the same shape. The wheel, the Halo, could be imagining itself fully repaired and ready to live again—just as Gamelpar said. It was drawing up plans that soon enough it would finalize and make solid.
Vinnevra kept glancing at the sky. The wolf-faced orb was now so large it illuminated the entire shoreline, adding to the sky bridge’s reflected glow. Dark sky—and hence any good view of the stars—was going to be rare from now on.
Hours later, we approached the far shore and saw beneath thick, lowering clouds mountains of medium height, cool and deep green and wet.
Following the first edge of day, our boat bumped up on another rocky beach. We abandoned it and began to trek into the dense, rolling jungle, traveling no particular direction, following no geas. We were lost children, nothing more.
Even Gamelpar.
SEVENTEEN
FRUIT THAT TASTED like soft-boiled eggs hung in bunches from the thick-bunched trees, but out of caution, we ate sparingly at first—the only satisfying food we had had since Gamelpar’s snares caught the fist-fur rodents. Other edible plants that both Gamelpar and Vinnevra seemed to know would taste good grew around or between the twisted, twining trunks, vines, and creepers—and so we settled down, full and peaceful, not caring for once where we were or what might happen next.
But walking was what we did, so we did not stay more than a day.
Though we had eaten well, Gamelpar seemed to be losing both strength and enthusiasm. He walked more slowly and we rested often. The forest cast a twilight over us even during the day, and at night the pale light of the wolf-orb and the sky bridge filtered down, only slightly less helpful. We might have covered a half kilometer during the next daylight hour, keeping to the winding, open patches between the greater trees, pushing through soft, leafy vines that seemed to grow even as we watched.
There was food. There was quiet. The old spirits did not bother us.
It could not last, of course.
* * *
We had risen with the brighter twilight of day and were now sharing a reddish, melonlike fruit that tasted both sour-bitter and sweet, and cut both thirst and hunger.
Biting flies and mosquitoes haunted the shadows. They were enjoying us as we enjoyed the fruits of the forest. I swatted, examined bloody remains on my palm, finished my portion of the melon, and was about to toss aside the rind when my eyes froze on the near forest.
What might have been an odd gap between the trees—shaped like the great figure of a man, broad-shouldered, with an immense head—had appeared to our left, fewer than ten paces away. I reached for Vinnevra’s shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. She had seen it, too.
The shadow moved—we both jumped. The air hung still and damp in the morning gloom. I could hear the rustle of leaves, branches, ground-creeping vines. A vine near my foot tightened as the shape stepped on it.
From across the small clearing, Gamelpar let out a whistle. Vinnevra did not dare respond.
The great shoulders of the shadow rotated and shoved aside thick branches, pulling at clinging vines until they snapped and swung up. I thought for a moment that this was the Didact, returned to gather me up—but no, the shadow was larger even than the Didact, and furthermore walked on both arms and legs. Its long, dark-furred arms shoved down like pillars into the matted, overgrown floor of the forest.
With a snort and a deep-chested grumble, the shadow swung about and rose up against the canopy. Vinnevra went to ground like a fawn—still as a statue, perched lightly on the balls of her feet, ready to bolt. Our eyes followed the shadow’s slow, stately approach.
A great black-furred arm dropped within reach. At the end of that arm flexed a huge hand—four or five times broader than my own. A massive face leaned over us—and such a face! Deep-set eyes framed in a wide fringe of reddish fur, a flat, broad nose with immense nostrils—jowls reaching almost to its shoulders—and yellow-white teeth glinting between thick, purple-brown lips.
The great green eyes looked down on me, unafraid, curious—casually and calmly blinking. Then the eyes looked aside, no more afraid of me than I would be of a small bird.
In the corner of my vision, a yellow light came flickering through the trees, tiny as a glowing fingertip. The great dark face abruptly pulled up and away, and we smelled grassy, fruity breath.
Silence again. How could something so large move so quietly? But I did not have time to think on this, for the light appeared from behind a wide tree trunk. It was like the flame of a clay lamp, but held in a Forerunner’s hand. Often with seven lithe fingers, purple-gray skin with pink underside—and above lamp and hand, a slender, questing face, glancing at where the great shadow had been, then back at me, as if acknowledging that we had both seen something, and that we were now seeing each other—and all of it was real.
The Forerunner brought the lamp flame closer. Vinnevra had a glazed look. She could not flee. She did not want to flee. I, on the other hand, had no wish to be carried off to the Palace of Pain. I leaped up and tried to run—straight into a wall of black fur.
Huge hands closed around me. One hand clutched my ribs and another took hold of my flailing arm. Off to the side, soft voices rose from the forest. The hand around my torso let go and the other lifted me by my arm from the dirt and leaves. I dangled, feebly kicking, while the lamp flame came still closer.
The Forerunner was neither like Bornstellar nor like the Didact. But it did bear a sort of resemblance to another that lingered in my dreams—the Lifeshaper, the Librarian. The Lady. This one was not female, however—at least, not the same sort of female. Of that I was sure.
But very likely a Lifeworker.
As I hung, the huge hand rotated me, allowing me to see, outlined by the glow of the flickering flame, three or four other figures. These looked human, male and female—but not like me and not like Gamelpar and Vinnevra.
As for what it was that dangled me like a child—
“Ah, finally!” the Forerunner said in a thin, musical voice, light as a breeze. “We’d feared you were lost for good.” Then he addressed my captor in a gruffer, darker tone, ending with a chuff and a clack of teeth, and the clutching hand lowered me to the floor—gently enough, though my wrist, fingers, and shoulder hurt.
“Your name is Chakas, true?” the Forerunner asked, waving the flame near my face.
Why fire? Why not—
I stood up, stretching and massaging my sore arm, surrounded by extraordinary figures. The humans were not any variety I had seen before, but more like me than the Forerunner, and certainly more like me than the looming, black-furred shape.
I answered that was my name.
“He is not from here.” Vinnevra shoved through the circle and stood in front of me, arms extended, as if to protect me. I tried to push her off, to get her to leave—I did not want to be responsible for anything that might happen here—but she would not budge.
“Indeed he is not,” the Forerunner agreed, stretching out his hand and spreading those long, slender fingers. “His coming was anticipated. He was to be the Master Builder’s prize. Do not fear us,” he added, more for Vinnevra’s benefit than mine. “No one will be taken to the Palace of Pain. That time is soon finished, and there is no need for punishment or vengeance. The Master Builder’s doom and the fate of his forces is worse than humans can imagine.”
MONITOR INTRUSION ALERT.
Ship’s data accessed: Historical/Anthropological Files, re: Earth Africa/Asia. Source determined to be Forerunner Monitor.
CAUTIONARY NOTICE FROM STRATEGIC COMMANDER: “Any further break-ins to ship’s data and I’ll toss that damned thing into space. I don’t give a flying fortune cookie how much you’re learning! It’s a menace! Make it get to the point!”
RESPONSE FROM SCIENCE TEAM *DELETED FOR BREVITY*
*AI RECALIBRATION*
FIREWALLS PUSHED TO ^INFINITE RANDOM MAZE^
MONITOR STREAM NUMBER THREE (Nonrepeating)
In the morning light, we followed in the train of the Forerunner, taking a winding vine-covered path to higher ground. The foothills to the mountains were also thick with jungle. The mountains themselves trapped the cloudy masses of moist air that echoed back and forth across the span of the Halo and forced them to drop their moisture nearly every night, and so the false rocks and ridges ran with cascades of foaming water, drawing silver-white streaks over the green and black. Those probably emptied into the sea behind us, but there was no way of knowing.
The air too was wet, and the ground beneath us warmer, steaming, as if great vents of hot water laced through the foundation (and perhaps they did).
Once, on Earth, there were many types of hominids, hominoids, and anthropoids who no doubt also thought of themselves as People. I was closest in form to those who now interrogate me; Riser was smaller, of a different species. Gamelpar and Vinnevra I suspect most closely resembled those you call Aborigines, from the ancient continent of Australia.
The humans who accompanied this lone Forerunner bore some resemblance to those you now refer to as Denisovans. They were taller than me, chocolate brown, with spare bodies, reddish hair, and square heads. The males had copious facial hair.
The huge black shadow with long arms—a great ape like a gorilla, but not a gorilla—I believe is known to you only through a few fossil molars of impressive size. You call it Gigantopithecus, the largest anthropoid ever seen on Earth, almost three meters at the shoulders and crest, even taller standing up.
And this one was a female. According to your records, the males could have been larger.
Frightening in countenance but gentle in behavior, the great shadow-ape seemed to have taken a liking to Gamelpar and Vinnevra and carried them for a time on her shoulders. Great bristling wings of gray-tipped dark red fur framed her broad, sloping face. Huge lips pouched down around squat, thick incisors large enough to chew through wood and crush bone—but in our presence she ate mostly leaves and fruits.
Gamelpar, riding high over us, clutched the dense fur on the ape’s shoulder and smiled all the while. Vinnevra looked happier than I had yet seen her. Several times she looked down upon me, walking among the Denisovans—three males and two females, laconic and moody—and said to me, each time, “It’s coming back to me now. This is my true geas. This is what I should have seen.”
Eventually, the ape’s loping gait and frequent passage under low-hanging branches forced Vinnevra and Gamelpar to the ground to walk on their own.
The Denisovans, who appeared to find Gamelpar’s age intriguing, studied his weariness with sympathetic sighs, then used vines to tie together a litter, and for a while he rode that way, Vinnevra walking by his side.
The old man’s lips drew back in a broad smile. “Much better,” he said.
There was something about this process—the regular way the litter swung, the smoothness with which it was carried—that caught my eye; but I dismissed my concerns, for now.
We climbed higher. The canopy thinned. We could see much of the sky. By the time the sun brushed the middle of the darkling band of the sky bridge, and shadow was equidistant from us to either side—“noon”—we arrived at a plateau.
The Forerunner called forth several hovering, round, blue-eyed machines, which met us at the thinning margin of the jungle. He addressed them with finger-signs, and the machines moved among us, paying particular attention to Vinnevra and Gamelpar—then to me.
The Denisovans did not find these floating balls remarkable. “They’re called monitors,” the tallest of the males said to me. He had chunky, ruddy features, a very large nose, and thin lips. “They serve the Lady … mostly.”
The old man leaned on his side in the litter while one of the machines passed a blue band of light over his skinny frame. The machine then did the same to me, and spun around to face the Forerunner, who accepted some communication we could not hear and seemed satisfied.
We had traveled some distance. The ape had found a little food suitable to the rest of us—fruit, mostly: strange green tubes with pointed ends and round, pulpy masses encased in reddish skins—but we were still thirsty. Worse, more insects had taken a liking to our blood and buzzed around us in annoying clouds.
“Why does the Lady allow such nuisances?” Vinnevra asked me in an aside while the machine was examining her grandfather.
I shook my head and swatted.
“This is a special reserve,” the tall Denisovan said. “We feed the flies, the flies feed the bats and birds and the fish. It is the Lady’s way.” But I noticed the insects ignored them and focused on us.
