Howling Stones (12 page)

He stepped back and closed the window. Not for the first time, Fawn Seaforth had given him something else to think about before retiring besides herself.

As warm, languid days came and went, progress in persuading the Torrelauans to formalize relations with the Commonwealth advanced at the philosopher Russell’s two classic speeds: dead slow and slower than dead. Jorana, the other big persons Pulickel talked to, even those with the least status among the villagers: all were unvaryingly polite, cordial, and obstinate. They expressed respectful interest in all the benefits Pulickel and Fawn claimed a formal treaty would bring to the people of Parramat. They were willing to listen to comparisons of what both the Commonwealth and the Empire had to offer. And they absolutely, uncategorically, refused to agree to anything.

It wasn’t long before Pulickel came to the conclusion that many, if not all, of the natives he had established a personal relationship with listened to him purely out of courtesy, and that they had no intention of giving serious consideration to the proposals he so carefully presented. Just as Fawn had warned him, they wanted nothing to do with the benefits being proffered either by the Commonwealth or the Empire.

One morning he confessed as much as they walked the mountainside southwest of the village, continuing their study of the extraordinary gardens of Torrelauapa. Middle and small persons worked the terraces while youngsters, their antics patiently tolerated by the busy adults, bounded and chased one another through the lush growth and elaborate arbors. Damp earth squished beneath the xenologists’ field sandals and they had to duck repeatedly to avoid bumping into the intricate, decorative trelliswork.

“Now you know,” Fawn was telling him, “why from time to time I’ve been less than fanatical about my work here. If the Parramati ever agree to a formal treaty with the Commonwealth, it’s not going to happen in a sudden burst of enthusiasm. It’s going to be the result of a long, tedious grind.”

Pulickel stepped carefully over something that looked like a meter-long yellow squash. “I’m sorry, Fawn, but I can’t accept that. I’m not the long, tedious grind kind of person.”

“You don’t say.” She started up a line of stone steps. “I never would’ve guessed. Listen to me: like it or not, you’d better resign yourself to the idea. Impatience here will only result in greater and greater frustration. No matter how clever or persistent you are, you can’t rush the Parramati.”

He followed her with his eyes. “The longest it’s ever
taken me to resolve a xenological impasse was three months. It’s a record I’m quite proud of, and I do not intend on losing it here.”

Idly waving at something small and fast that persisted in hovering in front of her face, she looked back over a shoulder at him. “I’d like to think you’re right. Unfortunately, experience tells me otherwise. And, there’s the big person I wanted you to meet.”

Their climb had taken them to the topmost terraces and both of them were breathing a little harder in the thick, humid air. “What is she,” he asked as he caught sight of the alien in question and was able to sex it, “a hermit?”

“No. Ascela and her relations just prefer to live up here. Think of it as a one-family suburb.”

Approaching, Fawn lowered her head toward the earth. Several of the younger seni in the vicinity responded with neatly tucked forward flips. When Pulickel duplicated their efforts, as he was now known to do, their delight was joyous to behold. The senior Parramati the xenologists had come to meet yipped appreciatively.

“I had heard that you could do the greeting, friend Pu’il.” Lips rippled eloquently.

He studied the mature female. She appeared to be approaching late middle age, though it was hard to be sure. The species did not manifest many outward indications of advancing years until they were quite elderly, but he was gradually learning to recognize the subtle indicators. She was a little less erect, a shade less bouncy on her hind legs than most of her brethren.

“It is pleasing to meet you.” He extended both hands palm upward. Three long, smooth fingers did their best to cover four of his own, ignoring the thumb. The seni found that extra afterthought of a digit quite amusing. Finger-out-of-place, they called it in their own language.

Fawn was speaking. “I have brought my friend Pulickel
to talk with you because he wishes to learn about roads and about stones.”

“I am not surprised.” The senior Parramati withdrew her hands. “It is said that you have no stones of your own and must use other things instead.”

“This is true.” In terranglo she told Pulickel, “I’ve tried to explain to these people what a computer is and what it does. It’s not a concept that translates well to a culture with low-end technology.”

“How did you finally do it?”

“Told them they were like flat stones that were connected by roads through the air. That’s pretty simplistic, but it’s a concept they can handle.”

Ascela was picking some kind of oval-shaped blue berries with pink spots, her long middle finger snapping them off the vine and placing them in a basket she carried beneath one arm. “Did you come to me now because there is going to be a mastorm tonight?”

Pulickel’s expression twisted slightly. “A mastorm? How does that differ from any other storm?”

“In the same way,” Fawn explained, “that a big person differs from a small person, or a stone master from one who can only sift gravel.”

“Then it’s just a bigger storm.”

“Not hardly.” She walked alongside the busy elder, towering over her and the other Parramati. “It’s a unique local meteorological phenomenon, sort of a pocket hurricane. Too compact to be a typhoon, too extended to be a tornado. They form in the southwest at regular intervals and sweep over the archipelago. Riding one out is quite an experience. They’re intense, and dangerous, but they’re over fairly quickly. I haven’t had time to analyze the mechanics very closely. When one sweeps in, I’m usually too busy seeing to the integrity of the station to spend time making observations.”

He brooded on the consequences of this possible new disruption of his work. “But it’s just a storm.”

She nodded. “Insofar as I’ve been able to determine. If you want a local take, ask Ascela.” He proceeded to do exactly that.

“The mastorm is a break in the roads.” Three-fingered hands continued to pluck berries with the delicacy of a surgeon. “During such times, certain stones do not work properly and people must be careful.”

“I can imagine,” he murmured. “There’s nothing worse than a defective stone.” Fawn frowned in his direction but, as usual, he ignored her.

Ascela took him literally. “That is very true.” She raised her penetrating gaze to the southwest. “This one will be difficult.”

He eyed her tolerantly. “Are you the local weather forecaster?”

She turned bright seni eyes on him. “There has been a weather stone in my family for a hundred generations.”

“There are two others on the island,” Fawn told him. “Each island has its own complement of weather stones, fishing stones, growing stones, and so on.”

“I remember.” To the female big person he said, “I wouldn’t mind seeing your weather stone.”

Fawn missed a step, but Ascela didn’t hesitate, gesturing elaborately with one delicate hand. “I would be pleased to show it to you, friend Pu’il. You must not touch it, of course, since you are not a stone master.”

“I quite understand.” Bending, he removed a glittering piece of quartz from the narrow paved path along which they were walking. “I have my own stones.”

“Come with me, then.”

Her simple home commanded a panoramic view of the terraced hillside, the surrounding green-clad mountains,
and the village below. From such heights, the magnificent waterfall that tumbled into the narrow inlet beneath the village was a mere distant trickle.

There was nothing different or striking about the sparse, clean, artfully decorated structure. It sat on short stone legs and looked out on several smaller outlying buildings that were used variously for storage and hygiene.

The sacred stone was kept in a small rear room of its own, atop a wonderfully carved and fluted pedestal of richly polished, dark purple metaria wood that spiraled up from the floor like an amethyst whirlpool. As near as Pulickel could tell, the stone was not guarded, alarmed, rigged, fastened, or otherwise protected from intruders.

Ascela confirmed this by simply reaching out and picking it up. Any youngster could have done it.

It wasn’t quite what Pulickel had expected. Uncarved and apparently unworked, the head-size, irregularly shaped lump of dark greenish glass hinted at a volcanic origin. Flung out by some ancient eruption, the stone might have come from any of a number of highly visible peaks that poked their dead or dormant crowns above the islands of the archipelago.

Ascela held it out for his inspection. One end was slightly flattened while the other exhibited several sharp edges where the material had been cut or fractured. There were hints of multiple inclusions within the material, no doubt other minerals that had formed in the course of the eruption. As a specimen it was interesting but hardly revelatory.

He watched as she turned it slowly in her hands. “This helps you to predict the weather?”

Ascela’s long fingers twisted. “When it becomes necessary.”

“That’s nice.” Having been invited in, the disappointed xenologist struggled to show interest. Now that he was
actually seeing one of the fabulous sacred stones of Parramati mythology, he was distinctly underwhelmed. “The other stones all look pretty much like this one?”

“All the ones I’ve seen.” Fawn was watching him closely. “Shapes and sizes differ, but I think they’re all fashioned from the same favored material.”

“That figures.” He turned back to the big person who was their hostess. “Thank you for showing me the stone. We have to go now.”

“You see how they avoid fighting among themselves.” Fawn was explaining as they exited the simple but sturdy structure and started back down the mountainside. “Since different families ‘control’ different stones, it forces cooperation on them. The masters of the fishing stones need the help of the masters of the growing stones, who need the help of the masters of the weather stones, who often consult the masters of the healing stones, and so on. You can steal a stone, but not the generationally accumulated knowledge of how to use it. So you cooperate. That’s the beauty of the setup. The Parramati aren’t so much pacific as they are sensible.”

“It’s a good system that obviously contributes to a more stable culture than is to be found on many of the island groups.” He was staring southward, where billowing cloud masses were gathering. Several were starting to show dark undersides.

“Of course, if you’re going to lay claim to the position of tribal meteorologist, it doesn’t hurt to live near the highest point on the island so that you can see approaching weather before anyone else.” He smiled knowingly. “It’s my guess that the Parramati are more than just secure in their kusum; I suspect they can number some intuitively clever individuals among their tribe, as well. I wonder if old Ascela would be quite so good a weather
predictor, stone notwithstanding, if she lived at the base of the village waterfall instead of up on the ridge.”

A trio of Parramati youngsters came hopping past them, clearing several of the broad stone steps with each bound. “Do you know if the stones were found locally, or have the Parramati acquired them through trade?”

“I don’t know.” They were almost at the bottom of the slope now, nearing the village, and she gestured. “I see Jorana chatting with Khoseavu and Uremila, two other big persons. Why don’t we ask them?”

He considered. “Then they’re not reticent on the subject?”

“Not if you’re polite and respectful.”

“I’m always polite and respectful.”

“I’ll bet,” she observed cryptically as they descended the last of the stone steps and headed for the trio of big persons.

Pulickel wasn’t quite sure what to expect from the line of dark clouds: sheeting rain, driving wind, perhaps some isolated bursts of hail. At the very least, a vigorous downpour. In addition, he allowed as how his normal expectations might also be unexpectedly modified by unfamiliar local geologic and oceanographic conditions.

Yet despite Fawn’s best efforts at describing a mastorm, the sheer suddenness and fury of it still took him aback. He’d weathered violent thunderstorms before. Even bucolic Denpasar, back on Earth, lay within the equatorial cyclone belt and was subject to annual extremes of weather.

It was the speed rather than the violence that dazed him. The sky darkened from clear blue to coal black in less than a minute, as if he were watching a many-times speeded-up vit. Gentle breezes metamorphosed into roaring winds capable of snapping sizable trees off at their roots. Rain fell not in sheets but in torrents, so heavy it completely obscured the view out the station’s ports. Frequent lightning silhouetted the forest in tones of damp, diffuse gray. So thunderous was the downpour on the station’s roof that he feared for its structural integrity.

“How do you prepare for these?”

Fawn was kneeling on a couch, resting her forearms on its padded back while staring out at the deluge. “You
don’t. Whenever they catch you, you just try to get under cover and stay there till it stops.” She looked back at him and grinned. “That is, unless you have the chance to ask Ascela or another weather person what they think the day is going to be like.”

Even inside the heavily insulated installation he had to raise his voice to make himself heard above the roar of the wind and the heavy drumming of the rain. “And these blow in how often?”

She considered. “They’re fairly regular but unfortunately fall short of being predictable. What you’ve got is a miniature supercell. The clouds coil themselves into a frenzy, go crazy for a little while, and then the whole meteorological business just unwinds and the sun comes back out.” She gave a little shrug. “Meteorology is another of my nonspecialties. If the mechanism responsible is half as impressive as the consequences, there’s a dissertation in it for someone. But not me.” She glanced down at her chronometer.