The Ship Who Won (34 page)

the speed in millimeters per second, so where glitches

appear there's no backup scan. Because this was done on a

magnetic medium, some is irrevocably lost, though not

much. I have filled in where I could. This is not the full,

official log. I think it was a personal record kept by a biologist

or an engineer. You'll see what I mean in the content."

The tape showed several views of Ozran from space,

including technical scans of the continents and seas. Loud

static accompanied the glitches between portions. Carialle

ZX/HH/ l-rJl V'-'Wll " ^-'4

found the technology was as primitive as stone knives and

bearskins compared to her state-of-the-art equipment, but

she was able to read between the lines of scan. She put up

her findings on a side screen for the others to read.

"Looks like a damned fine prospect for a colony," Keff

said, critically assessing the data as if it were a new planet

he was approaching. "Atmosphere very much like that of

Old Earth."

"Ureth," Plennafrey breathed, her eyes bright with awe.

Keff smiled. "Uh-huh, I see why tihey made planetfall.

Their telemetry was too basic. We wouldn't miss above-ground buildings and the signs of agriculture from space,

no matter how slight, but they did. Hence, first contact was

made."

The Bigelow's complement had been four hundred and

fifty-two, all human. Keff fancied he could see a family

resemblance to the flamboyant Mage Omri in the dark-skinned captain's face.

Chaumel lost his veneer of sophistication when the first

Old One appeared on screen. He stared at it open-mouthed. Keff, too, was amazed by the alien being, but he

could appreciate that, to Chaumel, it was analogous to the

gods of Mount Olympus visiting Athens.

"I have never seen anything like them. Have you,

Carialle?"

"No, and neither has Xeno," Cari said, running a hasty

cross-match through her records. "I wonder where they

came from? Somewhere else in R sector? Tracing an ion

trail at this late date would be impossible."

What could not have been indicated by the still image in

the folders which Keff has seen was that each of the aliens

five eyes could move independently. The flat bodies were

faintly amusing, like the pack of card-men in Through the

Looking-Class. The tapes compressed many of the early

meetings with the host species, as they showed the crew of

the Bigelow around their homes, introduced them to their

offspring, and demonstrated some of the wonders of their

seemingly inexplicable manipulation of power.

The Old Ones had obviously once had a thriving civilization. By the time the crew of the Bigelow arrived, they

were reduced to two small segments of population: the

number who lived singly in the mountains and the communal bands who tilled the valley soil. Being few, they

hadn't put much of a strain on the available resources, but

it wasn't a viable breeding group, either.

Keff listened to the diarists narration and repeated what

he could understand into IT for the benefit of the Ozrans.

'The narrator described the Old Ones and how happy

they were to have the humans come to live with them. He's

talking about ugly skills possessed-no, fabulous skills possessed by these ugly aliens, who promised to share what

they knew. Whew, that is an old dialect of Standard."

An Old One was persuaded to say a few words for the

camera. It pressed its frightful face close to the video

pickup and aimed three eyes at it. The other two wandered

alarmingly.

"I can understand what it says," Chaumel said, too fascinated to sound boastful. "How it speaks is what we now

call the linga esoterka. 'How joy find strangejoy find

strange two-eyes folk,' is what this one says."

"He's pleased to meet you," Keff said with a grin. He

directed IT to incorporate Chaumel's translation into his

running lexicon of the second dialect of Ozran. "It sounds

as though a good deal of Old One talk was incorporated

into a working language, a gullah, used by the humans and

Old Ones to communicate."

The mystical sign language Keff had observed was also

in wide usage among the green indigenes, but the narrator

of the tape hadn't yet observed its significance. Keff could

feel Carialle s video monitors on him, as if to remind him

of the times that IT ignored somatic signals. He grinned

over his shoulder at her pillar. This time, IT was coming

through like the cavalry.

"So that is where the expression 'to look in many directions at once' comes from," Chaumel said excitedly. "We

cannot, but the Old Ones could."

In his comer, Brannel was hanging on to every word.

Keff realized that his three guests comprehended far more

of the alien languages than he could. The two mages

chimed in cheerfully when the Old Ones spoke, giving the

meaning of gestures and words in the common Ozran

tongue, which Keff knew now was nothing more than a

dialect of Human Standard blended with the Old Ones'

spoken language. Somewhat ruefully, he observed that,

with Carialles enhanced cognitive capacity, he, the

xenolinguist, was the one who would retain the least of

what was going by on the screen. Carialle signaled for

Keffs attention when a handful of schematics flashed by.

"Your engineer identifies those microwave beams that

have been puzzling me," she said. 'They're the answerback

to the command function from the items of power telling

the Core of Ozran how much power to send. Each operates on a slightly different frequency, like personal

communicators. The Core also feeds the devices themselves. Hmm, slight risk of radioactivity there." One of

Carialles auxiliary screens lit with an exploded view of one

of the schematics. "But I haven't seen any signs of cancers.

In spite of their faults, Ozrans are a healthy bunch, so it

must be low enough to be harmless."

Another compression of time. In the next series of videos, the humans had established homes for themselves and

were producing offspring. Some, like the unknown narrator, had entered into apprenticeships to leam the means of

using the power items from the Old Ones. The rest lived in

underground homes on the plains.

"Hence the division of Ozrans into two peoples," Keff

said, nodding. "It's hard to believe this is the same planet."

The video changed to views of burgeoning fields and

broad, healthy croplands. Ozran soil evidently suited Terran-based plant life. The narrator aimed his recorder at

adapted skips, full of grain and vegetables being hauled by

domesticated six-packs. The next scene, which made the

Ozrans gasp with pleasure, showed the humans and one or

two Old Ones hurrying for shelter in a farm cavern as a

cloudburst began. Heavy rain pelted down into the fields

of young, green crops.

In the next scene, almost an inevitable image, one

proud farmer was taped standing next to a prize gourd

the size of a small pig. Other humans were congratulat-ing him.

Keff glanced at the Ozrans. All three were spellbound

by the images of lush farmland.

'These cannot be pictures of our world," Plenna said,

"but those are the Mountains of the South. I've known

them since my childhood. I have never seen vegetables

that big!"

"It is fiction," Chaumel said, frowning. "Our farms could

not possibly produce anything like that giant root."

'They could once," Carialle said, "a thousand years ago.

Before you mages started messing up the system you

inherited. Please observe."

She showed the full analysis of the puff of air that had

been trapped in the tape cassette. Keff read it and nodded.

He understood where Carialle was headed.

'This shows that the atmosphere in the early days of

human habitation of Ozran had many more nitrogen/

oxygen/carbon chains and a far higher moisture content

than the current atmosphere does." Another image

overlaid the first. "Here is what you're breathing now. You

have an unnaturally high ozone level. It increases every

time there is a massive call for power from the Core of

Ozran. If you want more ..."

In the middle of the cabin Carialle created a

three-dimensional image of Ozran. 'This is how your planet

was seen from space by your ancestors." The globe browned.

Icecaps shrank slightly. The oceans nibbled away at coastline

and swamped small islands. The continents appeared to

shrink together slightly in pain. 'This is how it looks now."

Plenna hugged herself in concern as Ozran changed

from a healthy green planet to its present state.

"And what for the future?" she asked, woebegone eyes

on Carialles image.

"All is not lost, Magess. Let me show you a few other

planets in the Central Worlds cluster," Carialle said, putting up the image of an ovoid, water-covered globe

studded with small, atoll-shaped land masses. "Kojuni was

in poor condition from industrial pollution. It took an

effort, but its population reclaimed it." The sky of Kojuni

lightened from leaden gray to a clear, light silver. "Even

planet Earth had to fight to survive." A slightly flattened

spheroid of blue, green, and violet spun among them. The

green masses on the continents receded and expanded as

Carialle compressed centuries into seconds. For additional

examples, she showed several Class-M planets in good

health, with normal weather patterns of wind, rain, and

snow scattering across their faces. The three-dimensional

maps faded, leaving the image of present-day Ozran spinning before them.

Chaumel cleared his throat.

"But what do you say is the solution?" he asked.

"You overlords have got to stop using the power," Keff

said. "Its as simple as that."

"Give up power? Never!" Chaumel said, outraged, with

the same expression he would have worn if Keff had told

him to cut off his right leg. "It is the way we are."

"Mage Keff." Brannel, greatly daring, crept up beside

them and spoke for the first time, addressing his remarks

only to the brawn. "What you showed of the first New

Ones and their land-that is what the workers of Klemay

have been trying to do for as long as I have lived." He

looked at Plenna and Chaumel. "We know plants can grow

bigger. Some years they do. Most die or stay small. But I

know-"

"Quiet!" Chaumel roared, springing to his feet. Brannel

was driven cowering into the comer. "Why are you letting

a fur-face talk?" the silver mage demanded of Keff. "You

can see by his face he knows nothing."

"Now, look, Chaumel," Keff said, aiming an admonitory

finger at him, "Brannel is intelligent. Listen to him. He has

something that no other farmer on your whole world does:

a working memory-and that's your fault, you and your fellow overlords. You've mutated them, you've mutilated

them, but they're still human. Don't you understand what

you saw on the tape? Brannel knows when, and probably

why your crops have failed, so let the man talk."

Brannel was gratified that Mage Keff stuck up for him.

So he gathered courage and tried, haltingly, in the face of

Chaumels disapproval, to describe the failed efforts of

years. "We seek to feed the earth so it will burgeon like

this-I know it could-but every time, the plants either

die or the cold and dryness come back when the mages

have battles. The farms could feed us so much better, if

there was more water, if it was warmer. Of the crops"-he

held up all eight of his digits-"this many do not survive."

He folded down five fingers.

"You're losing over sixty percent of your yield because

you like to live high," Keff said. "Your superfluous uses of

power, to show off, to play, to kill, is irresponsible. You're

killing your world. One day your farms won't be able to

sustain themselves. People will die of starvation. No matter

what you think of their mental capacity, you couldn't want

that because then you'd have no food and no one to do the

menial labor you require."

Chaumel looked from Keffs grim face to the spinning

globe of Ozran, and sat down heavily in the crash couch.

"We are doing that," he said, raising his long hands in

surrender. "Everything he says, he knows. But if I lay down

my items of power to help, my surrender will not stop all

the others, nor will appealing to wisdom. We mages dis-trust each other too much."

'Then we need to negotiate a mass cease-fire," Carialle

said.

"Not without a ready alternative," Chaumel returned

promptly. "Our system is steeped in treachery and the

counting of coup."

"I found references to that, too," Keff said, consulting a

page of the first manual. "Somebody made a bad translation for your forefathers of instructions given to officers

seeking promotion. It says 'consideration for continued

higher promotion will be given to those individuals who

complete the most successful projects in the most efficient

manner.' It goes on to say that those projects should benefit the whole community, but I guess that part got lost over