Outward Borne (22 page)

The next day, we met again. She
was able to talk about the images, but found it difficult to
explain her emotions. She felt as if she were watching herself in
another life, that she could feel the experience, but had no memory
of them. We watched some of the pictures again. I explained what I
thought some of the things were and what they were doing. There
were many hours of such images, I told her, and maybe she could
make more sense of what she had before her. She marveled at the
painted walls in the few interiors that were pictured and how
beautiful she thought they were, but she had no idea that her own
people could have created them.

I asked her about the music that
could be heard, if they had any instruments or songs. Yes, she
said, long ago it was said that there were songs sung, but no more.
She agreed that it looked as if her people had instruments and were
singing. It sounded not the least bit musical to me. She too had no
idea what the rolls of cloth were for, and noted several other
things that were being carried about or used that were not
familiar.

The Nivinwa wanted to show the
pictures to her people. Only forty-two were left, she said. She was
very aware that their numbers were dwindling. We agreed to that,
RaLak5 willing, of course. I decided not to tell her about the
paints, however. It would be very sad to watch, I expect, even
though there was rather little about the capture itself. In the
end, before leaving, she turned and looked at me. For some time she
was silent, but at last, she told me her name and she allowed me to
use it, Qualli. It was difficult to say, but it made me happy to
try. I had the feeling that it was a sort of honor to be given her
name; perhaps we had become friends.

Qualli showed the pictures,
several times as it turned out, over the next week. They generated
a range of reactions, disbelief to anger, among the Nivinwa, which
is a good thing I believe. When Qualli came to tell me of this, I
could see that she was pleased, proud to have done something for
her people. It was wonderful to see and I was excited. I proposed a
whole list of projects that the Nivinwa could take up. All the many
days of pictures could be made available, but should not a group be
formed to study them? What of the painting, could they be
understood, and the music. You could hear the music and songs,
could they be copied? I told her about the paints and even painted,
poorly, a picture of Lowulf. I gave him red and yellow stripes to
be more like the colorful paintings the Nivinwa made.

I showed her the two string
instruments that Childeric had copied from the fleeting images we
had seen. He did not think they sounded particularly good, but it
was the best he could manage with the artificial wood he had to
work with. NorHan Si said that they must be decontaminated before
the Nivinwa could touch them. This was a mystery to me. They were
not at all dirty. Childeric had just made them, but NorHan Si was
adamant that the Nivinwa might sicken and die by contact with our
residue. She believed that Qualli would be pleased to receive them.
I hope with hope in her heart it was so. We had made no plans for
another meeting.

I saw Childeric making off with a large box. I
ran after him. “What do you have there?”

“
Paints,” he said, “Dagobert and
Lothar wanted to try painting, so I kept some. They did not make a
good green pigment, but maybe we can mix some other colors to make
some.”

“
Did you keep an instrument as
well?”

“
Yes, he answered,
two.”

I felt much better after our
contact with the Nivinwa, not only for them, but also for us and
for our ability to make a life for ourselves on the Outward. I
never heard from Qualli again. I did speak with RaLak5, however. He
was pleased, almost vindicated in some way that I did not
understand.

Gwynyth did not live long after
the Nivinwa encounter, but she did see the change that had occurred
among the People of the Outward Voyager, for that is how they began
to see themselves. Perhaps it was their ignorance about where they
were, or the hopelessness that their circumstances would ever
change, but the very simplicity of their lives lead to a
determination to take what little they had and use it to the utmost
to make a living as best they could.

Chapter 14 Gracks

Brightly lit gas clouds surrounded
the outer reaches of this solar system, and its changeable patterns
were a new and unusual scene when viewed from the People’s narrow
window into the galaxy.

“
Have you heard when we will
become weightless again,” Clovic asked as he and his mother were
walking from the observatory to their rooms.

“
I do not know exactly, it could
be tomorrow or some weeks yet.”

“
Is the lander really going to
bring back new aliens? Did it really find some this
time?”

“
Apparently so, I understand from
Ragnar that it has already left the planet, he did not know when
exactly, and is already returning to the Outward so the star
rounding could end at any time.”

“
I wonder if they will they look
like Old Lady Gwyn’s Nivinwa.”

“
No, I am sure not, there is no
reason why they should, and don’t call her Old Lady Gwyn, and
before you ask, no, they will not live with us. I do not know where
they will live, or even if we will ever hear a single word about
them.”

“
I wish we could though, I wish we
could see them.”

“
What should be important to you,
Clovic, is to get your rooms ready, we need to pack things tightly
so that they will not get all jumbled when we go weightless. It
took days to sort out the mess from the last time, remember.”
Gunhild hoped they would be given some notice before the ship’s
engines were shut down. Weightlessness would come on very quickly.
She would have no time to put anything right after that, and it
would take days and days before rotation came up to speed
again.

Gunhild was working on a new set
of pants. She was using the new red fabric that just arrived. Her
friend Averil said that it particularly complimented her red hair.
She was trying to perfect a billowing style for the legs to match
the sleeves on her top that worked out so well. Almost every person
of the Outward made their own clothes and, without designers and
fashion trends to show the way, everyone attempted to create their
own ideas of how they should look. The People did not need to wear
much. The temperature was quite warm, and they would have been
comfortable enough with anything. That was fortunate for their
fabrics were almost the same as the thin, form-fitting synthetics
their ancestors were given so many years ago. Men and women wore
skirts ranging from very short, young girls mostly, to floor
length, as well as robes, tunics, pants, and hoods. Tight, loose,
long, or short, individuality was more common than the occasional
fads that came and went.

“
I heard that Ingomar was helping
to build their habitat.”

“
Clovic, stop. Ingomar is not
building any habitat. You know there is no room for another habitat
on our deck. Now leave me be and get your stuff ready.” An alien
arrival was a change in routine, if not a particularly pleasant
one.

The Outward’s Robotic Lander
Assembly closed on the cloudy planet and approached one of its
small, extremely rugged verdant areas. The large nearby moon and
close proximity to its star had subjected this planet to immense,
continuous gravitational stresses throughout its long geological
history. Those ever variable forces gave rise to a hot fluid core
that constantly pushed outward through the thin crust to form
patches of land that rose above the planet-girding sea. The
turbulent ocean and frequent storms seemed intent on erasing each
rocky blight. The soft volcanic rock was eroded almost as fast as
it formed. Continuously erupting shield volcanoes covered swaths of
land with fresh lava and barren cinder fields, while older
mountains were eroded into steep, weathered hillsides and narrow,
deep valleys. The few scattered patches of flat, fertile land lay
in the rare valley floors and river deltas. Plant life was spotty
on the newly formed rock, while dense vegetation covered the older
ranges. The steep valley walls were too steep for any large beings
to inhabit, but the small isolated plots of level land teemed with
life, both plant and animal, and were highly valued and often
fought over by the dominant species.

The Gracks, called so after a
common call they made to each other, were two-legged, highly
aggressive predators with thick square bodies, strong heavy arms,
similarly shaped legs and a hard low lump of head. They were beasts
in every sense of the word and ugly. They had moist black
depressions along the ridge, where the neck should be, and below
that, a round toothless mouth that always gaped open. The Gracks
were taller than the tallest human when upright, even without a
proper head, but they leaned forward when they ran and foraged
about. Muscular, widely spaced arms and thick legs supported a
barrel-chested body. Their dark-colored, firm, smooth, hairless
body was extremely strong and taught. They were built like sharks
with rigid collagen-like structures instead of bones and with body
girding muscle.

There were a number of other large
animal species on the land. Some were even more aggressive than the
Gracks, but only the Gracks had mastered the use of weapons. Gracks
were found in a considerable range of sizes and colorings, and
lived as separate tribes among the planet’s isolated islands. While
not very advanced technologically, they had a language and were
well-organized, especially for hunting and fighting. They were a
stone-age species that lived in small, highly territorial tribal
bands that existed in a state of perpetual warfare. The planet
itself seemed to insure that peace would not long reign, for the
roiling geology periodically took away the fertile land, and
earthquakes, floods, and landslides worked on the unstable flood
plains, displacing tribes to cause another round of migrations or
invasions, depending on which end of the trail you were
on.

After careful and extensive
surveillance, the ObLaDas selected a landing site seemingly free
from conflict. Not a good choice, for in the land of the Gracks the
appearance of peace only indicated the occupants were strong enough
to have wiped out all their opposition. By choosing this peaceful
valley, the ObLaDas took on, and eventually took on-board, the
biggest and baddest Gracks around.

Eighty individuals occupied that
particular valley. There were three hamlets, each on a hilltop and
with clear sight lines from one to the other. The camps were
situated near a lake and two small muddy streams with well-cleared
trails running between them. The picturesque setting was
unintended, for the towns were sited to provide mutually supporting
defensive positions and dominated the central valley.

The approach was a spectacular
sight as the lander circled above the deep ravine then, just beyond
the surrounding peaks, made a steep swooping descent toward a
cleared field next to the shallow lake. The fast decent was broken
as the ship turned nose up and set off its vertical thrust engines.
Still, it was a hard landing, and some of the robotic equipment
broke loose and was damaged. The robotic landing craft’s high-speed
approach and loud engines startled the animals throughout the
valley and all but the Gracks ran away from the huge
ship.

Within minutes, two small bands
ran from the villages and took up positions on either side of the
ship. They threw rocks and spears at the big silver thing until it
became clear that the shell of the lander was too hard to damage.
The Grack chiefs moved around the ship throughout the day. They
were confused at the lack of movement by the thing that could
obviously fly and move at will. It clearly maneuvered around after
the landing, so it was not some dead thing that dropped from the
sky, and it did not appear to have landed hard enough to cause an
injury. Nevertheless, it did not move. The Gracks were not used to
things that did not fight back.

The overlord, Durack, and two war
leaders, Ropac and Guntic, headed each of the fortified villages
and were the leaders of this particular band of Gracks. Durack was
a young, tough character that was exceptionally strong and
possessed a quick temper. He had had only recently killed the old
chief and taken the top position by force, but he had been wounded
and lost some of his vision in that fight. This, he feared, might
be seen as a weakness and he was shrewd enough to see the lander’s
presence as an opportunity to solidify his leadership position
without being forced into a contest of strength with some rival.
Ropac and Guntic wanted to retreat into the hills and wait until
the big ship left the way it came, but Durack pushed the tribe
toward a decisive effort to destroy the craft.

The species and their lives were
optimized for conflict. It was a warrior society that could
efficiently mobilize all of its available resources when needed.
Female Gracks matured they went through a fertile period, but when
that ended, they continued to develop both in size and strength
until they rivaled the strongest males. During the night, Durack
sent most of his tribe into the hills to drag dead brush and
anything that would burn quickly to the lander. While it was still
dark, they piled the brush under the lander’s wings, the thinnest
and most easily burned part of the ship. Ropac pulled down one of
the larger fortifications to get some of the rare long straight
logs. Ropac’s troops sharpened the ends of these posts, crawled
under the ship, jammed the butt end of these large spears into the
ground, and wedged their pointed ends against the underbelly of the
craft. It could not move without impaling itself.