The Candle of Distant Earth (10 page)

“We really must go.” Shorter than the average Niyyuu and therefore no taller than the human standing beside her, Sobj-oes was able to reach a flexible arm around his shoulders without having to bend over to do it. “Nothing can do here. Not good be caught on this surface when these Iollth arrive.”

“Why not?” Walker muttered even as he let the astronomer lead him toward the waiting shuttle. “We have nothing against the Iollth, and they have nothing against us.”

“That true enough,” she agreed softly. “But is likely to be some fighting, however short-lived, and munitions not particular about who happen to be standing in their vicinity when they go off.”

Reluctantly, he allowed himself to be urged toward the landing ship, up the ramp, and into the portal. Pausing there, he looked back. From the slightly higher vantage point he was able to see better over the heads of the crowd. It was slowly, silently, and efficiently disbanding, each individual Hyfft shuffling toward specified departure points or waiting conveyors. There was no panic; no screaming and wailing, no flailing of limbs or pounding of diminutive chests. The air that had settled over the tarmac and nearby buildings was one of poignant acceptance. Having suffered the same impending, destructive fate multiple times previously, the Hyfft were sadly and stoically preparing to meet it and survive it once more. The attitude of the crowd was heartrending in its resignation. No doubt some among them, like the bitter historian Yoracc, expected to die in the coming day-slices as part of the customary carnage wreaked by the Iollth.

Then he was inside the landing ship. He was still staring out at the civilly dispersing throng as the door cycled closed. A concerned Sobj-oes guided him to his modified thrust chair. Moments later, engines thundered as the shuttlecraft lifted from the surface of doomed Hyff, carrying him and his friends and the last of the visiting Niyyuu toward their waiting starships, and to safety.

F
or all its spaciousness and modern galactic comforts, the
Jhevn-Bha
no longer seemed quite so welcoming. It had been home and refuge to Walker and his friends for many months, but after so much time spent on the surface of Hyff, among the congenial inhabitants of that world, the interior of the great starship now seemed cramped and cold. The novelty of both the vessel and its method of travel had become little more than commonplace.

From what little he knew of the motion picture business, Walker found himself comparing travel by such means to the making of movies. With film, he had read, actors spent most of their time standing around waiting for a scene to be set up. Then a minute or even less of filming was followed by more hours of set adjustment, makeup, camera positioning, and so on. It was the same with interstellar travel: long weeks of travel cooped up in a ship, during which nothing happened, until one reached the next destination. There wasn't even a chance of hitting an iceberg.

How quickly we humans become jaded,
he found himself thinking as he made his way through the access corridor. The Incas were startled and amazed to see men riding on horseback, and thought at first that man and horse were both part of the same outlandish animal. Today their descendants mounted and rode horses without thinking. Later there was the automobile; a shock and wonderment at first, now nothing more than another tool, like a hammer or a screwdriver. Then came air travel; initially restricted to the rich and powerful, today as ordinary a means of transportation as the car. And how had civilization survived without the computer and the internet?

Now here he was, a few years removed from taking taxis and trains to get around Chicago, and already he was bored with interstellar travel. A means of transportation that any scientist on Earth would have given years of their life to experience if only for an hour or so, and he was living it every day. Of course, he didn't have a clue how it worked, and was not even particularly interested in the details. As the old movie said, you turned the key, and it goes.

I've changed,
he thought as he turned a corridor, and not just because his professional specialty was now food preparation instead of commodities trading. It struck him that he also no longer thought much about the aliens among whom he now lived. Not as species, anyway, but only as individuals. Tuuqalians, K'eremu, Niyyuu. The Hyfft. The vile Vilenjji and the sophisticated Sessrimathe. All the different, diverse, sometimes bizarre races he had been compelled to encounter and deal with. No other human being existed in such circumstances. There was only him, Marcus Walker of Chicago, son of George Walker the retail salesman and Mary Marie Walker the schoolteacher. The closest thing he had to human companionship was his dog, George. Or as George would have put it, the closest thing he had to canine companionship was his human, Marc.

It's all relative,
he told himself. What mattered was not size or shape or color or number of limbs, or whether one breathed twenty-one percent oxygen, or thirty, or pure methane. What was important in a galaxy full of intelligence was how one related to one's fellow sentients. Discrimination existed, but had nothing to do with appearance. While discouraging to learn that it existed beyond the boundaries of Earth, at least it was based on something other than one's outer shell.

Having been forcibly torn from his homeworld, he wanted only to return there. Since then, circumstances had conspired to place him in a position to have an effect on the destiny of others. It was something he had not sought. At least his former profession had schooled him in dealing with important decisions, even if they had only involved money. How trite that seemed now. How utterly insignificant and unimportant. Nickel prices. Cocoa futures. How severely a lingering drought might affect the soybean harvest in central Brazil. Before his abduction, he had lived a life dominated by inconsequentialities and trivial pursuits. As did the great majority of human beings. But at least he had an excuse.

He hadn't known any better.

Now he had to participate in a discussion that would decide whether or not he and his friends ought to risk their lives to aid a people whose very existence they had been unaware of up until a short while ago. To try to help, or to continue on their course. For better or worse, they now had a destination: a real vector that should lead them to the stellar vicinity of the home of one of his now closest friends: Braouk's homeworld of Tuuqalia. It seemed an easy choice.

Certainly George thought so. The dog spoke up without waiting to be prompted.

“We've come a long way from months lost as captives on the Vilenjji ship,” the dog declared to the assembled group. “We lost more time on Seremathenn, pleasant as our stay there might have been. Then there was our little diversion on Niyu.” He nodded in the direction of Gerlla-hyn, the Commander-Captain's first assistant Berred-imr, and the astronomer Sobj-oes. “The flow of time is continuous, don'tcha know. The universe makes no exceptions for individual biological clocks.” Turning, he peered up at his human, eyes wide, and rested his front paws on the seated man's knees.

“Don't look at me like that,” Walker warned him. “I know that look. It won't work. You're no puppy anymore, and neither am I.”

“All right then.” With a bound, George jumped up onto the conference table and began to pace purposefully. “Consider this. I'm ten years old. With luck and care, I might have another ten or so in me.” Turning, he strode back to Walker, nearly at eye level with him now. “You've probably got half a century, bonobo-bro, maybe more. So excuse me if I seem like I'm in more of a hurry to get home. I know I'll be food for worms one day, but I'd like them to be familiar, homey, terrestrial-type worms. Not some slithering alien glop whose shape is more twisted than its DNA.” He smiled thinly. “Call me traditional.”

“That something we can all understand.” Gerlla-hyn spoke from the far side of the circular, double-topped table. “As you know, tradition is of great importance among my kind.” The Commander-Captain's huge yellow-gold eyes focused on the only human in the room. “But sometime, tradition must make space for improvisation. Question before us remains: Is this one of those times? I know what matter to me. But I am, within reason, at disposal of yous.” His frill lying perfectly flat against his neck, he leaned forward slightly. “How now wish yous proceed?” Clasped together, the two fingers of one hand indicated George, presently recumbent on the upper tabletop. “Already know, I believe, opinion of small quadruped on this matter.”

Having already struggled with the question, Walker was ready with an answer. “If we decide to try to help, we first need to determine if it's even feasible. That's a matter for military analysts, not us. Gerlla-hyn, your staff has had a chance to study the accounts compiled by the Hyfft. What do they portend?”

The Commander-Captain turned to the elderly female seated on his left. Berred-imr promptly consulted a portable readout. “Unless unforeseen technological developments present selves, is possible effective defense might be concocted. As in many potential clashes between opposing forces, much depend on intangibles such as tactics. Of these Hyfft know nothing, since historically all fighting take place on surface of Hyff or at least within planetary atmosphere. Hyfft can provide no information on type of Iollth strategies and weapons systems designed for use in free space.” She lowered the readout. “Any proposed action on our part must take these unknowns into consideration.”

A response that might have been anticipated, Walker realized. Also not an especially encouraging one.

From the far side of the table, Sque emerged from between the two tops to wave a trio of tentacles. “Do you want my opinion, or do you all still remain so low on the intelligence scale that it does not occur to you to ask?”

“Yes, Sque,” Walker replied with a measured sigh, “we want your opinion. As always.”

Mollified no more or less than usual, the K'eremu clambered up onto the upper tabletop. “Leaving aside for the moment the ethics of this situation and focusing solely on matters military, you are all obsessed with capabilities these Iollth—another inferior species, I have no doubt—may or may not possess. I should like to point out that irrespective of these unknowns, we already have one advantage over them.”

“What that be?” a curious Berred-imr demanded to know.

“We know far more about them than they know about us,” the K'eremu reminded her matter-of-factly. “Even if they have detected our presence here, they do not know if the technology available to us is superior to theirs or inferior. They do not know if these three ships represent harmless visitors or aggressive warcraft. Their ignorance exceeds ours.”

“They'll find out, though,” George pointed out from the other end of the table. “The Hyfft will tell them—after we've left.”

“That is one possibility.” Sque continued to wave several tentacles, apparently under the impression that the constant undulating motion somehow kept her audience in a state of enduring fascination. “Another is that we do not leave, but that we remain to render what assistance we can to our recent hosts.”

George lifted his head in surprise. Walker was openly astonished. From the back of the room, hunched low against the ceiling, Braouk thrust both eyestalks toward the table.

“Not like Sque, this sudden unexpected declaration, of help. Is most refreshing, to hear something unselfish, from you.”

The K'eremu flashed metallic gray eyes at the hulking Tuuqalian. “I agree. But I have reasons. Perhaps one is that I'm in no hurry to get to your world, which I know from all too much experience is nothing if not aurally polluted.” Pivoting on her tentacles, she turned to face Gerlla-hyn and Berred-imr. “Among my kind the ready acceptance of the observably superior, be it collective or individual, is recognized as a sign of high intelligence. As the Hyfft accorded me that status early on in our relationship, I would find it bad-mannered to flee precipitously while they are so grievously threatened.”

A slow grin began to spread across Walker's face. “Why, Sque—you
like
them.”

“I do not ‘like,'” she corrected him coolly. “I
appreciate
the Hyfft. They demonstrate the kind of courtesy and respect that is all too often lacking among the inferior species.” Her stare left the commodities trader in no doubt to whom she was referring.

It didn't bother him. With an effort, he fought back the smile that threatened to spread across his face. “However you wish to define it.” He returned his attention to the two Niyyuu. “They've got five ships; we've got three. We know little about them; they know nothing about us.”

“Sounds like a good recipe for leaving,” an increasingly glum George ventured hopefully. He could tell which way the wind was starting to blow, and it wasn't toward him.

The Commander-Captain and his first assistant conferred. When they had concluded their brief private conversation, Gerlla-hyn looked back at his guests. His frill remained flat and his tails stilled. Not a good sign, Walker felt.

“While we are at yous disposal in yous attempt return home,” he informed them, “I still charged with safety of many hundreds of my people. All else being equal, where ‘else' remains unknown quantity, three against five not good odds—and we not know if all
is
being equal. In absence of additional information as to Iollth capabilities, I compelled to urge against remaining here, much less participating in any active defense of this pleasant but unallied, unaligned world.”

“Out of the mouths of aliens, sanity.” Relieved, George let his head slump back down onto the table.

“That could be taken as an insult by some,” an increasingly confrontational Sque shot back.

“Please to understand, friend Sque,” the Commander-Captain pointed out, “that in military situation, superior individual intelligence no substitute for lack of same about potential enemy. Cannot risk fighting blind. Not three against five.” Respectful of the K'eremu's acumen but in nowise intimidated by it, he thrust all four tail tips in her direction. “Unless can find way change this assessment, I must order departure from this system.”

“The Hyfft have survived these incursions before,” Berred-imr added. “Will survive again.”

“But will Ussakk the Astronomer?” Walker asked pointedly. “Or Mardalm the Linguist? Yoracc the Historian? And all the others with whom we became good friends, who gave of themselves on our behalf without having hardly to be asked?” Turning slightly in his too-narrow chair, he peered across the room at Braouk. “Can we just abandon those who helped find a vector to the vicinity of Tuuqalia?”

The Tuuqalian bestirred himself, and for a moment, the Commander-Captain and his first assistant looked suddenly uneasy. But all Braouk flailed them with was words.