Otherness (18 page)

"You're sure you can't stay?" he asked Yukiko, unable to keep disappointment out of his voice. She shook her head. "I can't, Minoru-san. I promised to drop in at Purple Cliffs Station for dinner." With a light in her eyes she leaned toward him and whispered, "They say they found a local berry with low toxicity levels, and what they call a 'tart but pleasant' taste."

"Lucky bastards," Minoru commented, meaning the remark more ways than one. He knew full well what Todo and Shimura were trying to accomplish by inviting Yukiko to a "feast."

She smiled—dimples under her brown eyes made him want to reach out and touch her smooth skin. Propriety, and her helmet faceplate, prevented him.

"I'll let you know how it tastes, Minoru," Yukiko said. "If it's any good, I'll bring you some next time I drop by."

"Just so." Minoru looked away. He sometimes wished this expedition had been run in a somewhat less Japanese way. For unmarried women chastity had been the rule for ten time-dilated years. Now that they had landed, though, larger living quarters would soon be available in the high, altiplano freshness of Okuma Base. Boom for new couples to set up house, and even start families. He and Yukiko, like many others, had set out from Earth as teenagers. Yet he was still looked on as an awkward youth, while she was considered the most beautiful and desirable woman among those left unattached. Clearly she was in the process of looking, sampling, making up her mind. Underneath his outwardly impassive shell, Minoru felt helpless and, to a growing degree, desperate.

"Oh, I almost forgot," Yukiko said, turning at the top of the ramp. She reached inside the ship and brought down a slim lacquered box, crafted delicately out of hardwood. This she handed to Minoru. "A present, since you miss the cooking at Okuma."

Under the wood veneer a cooling unit purred delicately. His mouth watered. "Is it . . .?"

"Sushi. Yes. Cultured
hamachi
and
uni
. I hope you like it."

Her smile filled Minoru with wonder, encouraging imagined possibilities he had all but given up. "Will I see you again soon?"

"Maybe." Then, impulsively, she touched her helmet to his for an instant. "Take care."

Soon the lander rose on its column of heated steam . . . watched by a crowd of Irdizu gaping from behind a safety line scratched in the sand. Minoru watched the flying machine peel away, and followed it across the sky until it disappeared. Then he went to help Emile move the supplies.

"You've got hopes," Emile commented succinctly, perhaps dubiously.

"Come on," Minoru grumbled. "I still have the east-slope cliffs to cover before nightfall. And haven't you got work to do, too?"

He hoisted a crate that should have called for two in this gravity, and moved awkwardly but happily toward the storage dome, away from Emile's knowing smile.

The laser played across the cliff face in double waves. First a gentle scan lit every millimeter of the sheer sedimentary surface, while recording devices read every microscopic contour and color variation. Then the machine sent forth a much more powerful beam, which seared away a thin layer. Monitors recorded glowing spectra from these vapors.

Minoru always made certain few Irdizu were present to watch this process. He didn't want superstitious awe of humans spreading even faster. A certain amount meant he and Emile were probably safe from receiving the pointy end of a trident in some future labor-management dispute. On the other hand, he had no wish to be mistaken for a god.

Perhaps I'd have been tempted, were the natives more attractive
, Minoru admitted wryly. Even on shipboard—
especially
on shipboard—fantasy had been a way to swim against the tide of ennui. He recalled one mural—painted on the lower decks by some frustrated engineers—which depicted green-skinned but nubile alien beauties catering to the desires of noble Earthling demigods. Minoru had thought the notion childish and unlikely, given reports on Genji sent by the robot probe.

Now all he could conjure in his mind was one face. One person. He wished his job didn't force him to spend so much time exploring sterile cliffs, when what he really needed to impress Yukiko might be waiting right now in some nearby meadow, some underground burrow, or some tidal shoal.

Well, at least Phs'n'kah is out there looking on my behalf. He knows the local flora and fauna better than I do. I'm sure he'll come up with something
.

Minoru brought his attention back to business at hand. What grew in the computer display was a slice-by-thin-slice representation of the cliff. Each horizontal lamina layer had been laid down along this ancient coast long ago, when the vagaries of this slowly shifting archipelago pushed lapping tidal waters over the place where he now stood. Amid the slowly growing image in his holo screen lay speckles of bright color where the device found fossil outlines . . . remains of creatures that had settled into the mud long ago.

Playing with the controls, Minoru zoomed among these discoveries, linking and correlating each one with his database of currently living animal types. Tentative identifications were made in real time, by phylum, family, genus . . . sometimes even by species. What emerged was a picture that would eventually tell the story of life on Genji.

As on Earth, the epic had begun at sea. Quite early some Genjian life-form discovered a chemical similar to chlorophyll, which it used with sunlight to split water, manufacturing its own carbohydrates and proteins, spilling a corrosive waste product, oxygen, into the atmosphere. Soon, as on Earth, Genji's early citizens had to adapt to changing conditions or die.

They not only adapted, but learned to thrive on the stuff. Higher-energy chemistry enabled faster, more complex modes of living. Over the course of time, some single-celled animals fell on the knack of combining and sharing roles, just as the eukaryotes had on Earth, about seven hundred million years before Minoru was born.

Amazing similarities. Amazing differences. As the cliff face slowly dissolved, micron by micron—by a total thickness amounting to no more than the erosion of a typical rainy season—Minoru fell into a Zenlike work trance, absorbed by the story unfolding before his eyes. His hands flew across the controls, eyes darting from discovery to discovery.

In his youth he had pictured exploring alien worlds as a matter of striding forth, ray gun in hand, to rescue (and be rewarded by) alien maidens. He had seen himself the bold hero of space battles, planting flags and beating off hordes of drooling monsters to uphold the right.

This was a better way. The fantasies of childhood were vivid, barbaric. Minoru recalled them with affection. But all in all, he much preferred being grown-up.

More transients had arrived to set up camp in the shantytown, over by the funnel-weed swamp. They were young adult females mostly, just past First Blush and into their wandering, home-finding phase. They had been drifting in for weeks from distant parts of the island, and even nearby isles, attracted by a sudden wealth of circulating metal. The newcomers' shelters were rude, makeshift affairs, built on high stilts to keep just above the average daily tides.

The hovels lay in the shadow of finely carved and dressed hilltop farmsteads. Established villagers glared down, sharpening "decorative" wooden stakes in close rows around their family compounds. Guards were posted to prevent pilfering from the Terran domes when Minoru and Emile were away. Recently there had been incidents between locals and newcomers in the village common areas—scrapes and jostlings for the few jobs on Minoru's work crews, for instance. Tail blows were exchanged as young females preened and competed for the attention of bewildered local bachelors.

Yesterday, at Minoru's urging, Emile took a break from interviewing his coterie of "wise women" and began questioning the transients instead. On his return the young linguist expressed dismay. "We've disrupted the economy of the entire island! Everything is in an uproar, and it's all because of us."

Minoru hadn't been surprised. "That's one reason contact teams were spread out—to lessen the impact. Anyway, what you're seeing is just an exaggeration of what went on all the time, even before we came."

"But the fighting! The violence!"

"You've been listening to Dr. Sato's romantic notions about our Peaceful Irdizu Friends, who don't even know the meaning of war. Well, that's true up to a point, but don't you ever listen to the folktales you record? How about the story of Rish'ong'nu and the Town That Refused?"

"I remember. It's a morality tale about the importance of hospitality—"

Minoru interrupted, laughing. "Oh, it's much simpler than that. Rish'ong'nu really existed, did you know that? And the village she conquered did not burn once, but at least forty times, over centuries both before and after her adventure."

Emile blinked. "How do you know?"

"Simple archaeology. I've taken cores of the site where Rish'ong'nu supposedly lived, and found carbon layers that give very specific dates for each rise and fall. Anyway, it makes perfect sense. These beings exercise female-mobile exogamy and polyandry based on male-intensive nesting. It's not like anything seen among mammals on Earth, but the pattern's pretty familiar among some types of birds and amphibians. Young females must set out and win a place in the world—and find one or more husbands to take primary care of offspring. She does this either by wooing a mate from a strong, well-established line, or by pioneering new territory, or by taking a place from someone else."

"You make it sound so savage."

Minoru shook his head. "It's right and proper to admire nature, Emile, but never to idealize it. The process is a competitive one. Always has been, in every species known.

"For instance, it didn't take long to confirm that the most basic rule of biology applies just as universally here on Genji. It was known even before Darwin, and it goes like this—
in all species, the average breeding pair tries to have more offspring than needed to replace themselves
."

Emile frowned. "But then, what keeps animals from overpopulating?"

"Good question. The answer is—natural controls. Predation by carnivores higher on the food chain. Or competition for limited food and shelter. I know it doesn't sound nice. It's just nature's way."

"But humans . . ."

"Yes, we're an exception. We learned to control our numbers voluntarily. But after how long a struggle? At what price? I assure you, no other Earthly species even makes the effort.

"So it's only natural I was curious about the sentient creatures we found here," Minoru went on. "I don't know about the Chujo natives yet—"

"Who does?"

"—but on Genji I set out to learn, did the rule hold here as well? That's why I asked you to inquire about their use of birth control."

"They do have some means," Emile said eagerly.

"Yes, but practiced sporadically. So the question remains: what else controls the Irdizu population?"

Emile looked at Minoru glumly. "I suppose you're going to tell me."

Minoru shrugged. "It seems a little of everything is involved. Some deliberate birth control, to be sure. Some predation by sea carnivores, when they forage too far. There is definitely some loss attributable to internecine fighting over the better fens, farmlands, and housing sites. At intervals there has been starvation. Finally, there's the environment."

"How do you mean?" Emile asked.

"Have you noticed the way Irdizu houses are shaped like boats, even though they're built mostly on hilltops?"

"Of course. It's a holdover from their ancestor-legends, when they were seafaring . . ." Emile trailed off when Minoru shook his head. "No?"

"I'm afraid they build them that way for much less romantic, more pragmatic reasons. Because every once in a while the tides sweep that high."

Emile gasped at the mental image, but Minoru went on. "That's why the shantytown looks out of place. On Earth, slums played long-lasting roles in community life. Here such areas are at best temporary. For the newcomers it's win a place on high ground, or die."

Emile simultaneously muttered a Buddhist prayer and crossed himself in the Latin manner. "No wonder the level of tension is rising so!"

"No wonder. Obviously, you and I must leave soon."

"But—you said this sort of thing was going on anyway, even without our presence."

"But we're setting off a local intensification," Minoru said. "I don't want the consequences on my karma. Besides, conditions here are no longer natural. We must try to finish soon, before there's nothing here to learn anymore."

A picture was starting to form. From surveying sediments, the island's flora and fauna, and the natives' own legends, Minoru was beginning to see an outline of Genji's recent past.

He hadn't told even Emile about what happened when the ancestors of Ta'azsh'da and Phs'n'kah arrived on this isle, eighty or so Irdizu generations ago. The paleontological record was clear, though. Within four of those generations,
half
of the species native to this isolated ecosphere had gone extinct or were driven across the waters. This was no intentional genocide. Human migrants had done the same thing just as inadvertently, back on ancient Earth—as on Hawaii, where countless bird species vanished soon after men and women arrived by Polynesian canoe. More harm was done by creatures arriving
with
men—rats and dogs and pigs.

On Genji the history of die-offs was clear in layers of soil and rock. Phs'n'kah and other bright Irdizu had been astonished when Minoru gave them lessons on how to read that record. A long list of animals and plants that weren't around anymore.

But that wasn't the biggest surprise. Not by far.