The V'Dan (34 page)

“It is believed that by shifting to a two-footed gait, our ancestors freed their hands for greater tool use, which stimulated greater capacity for intelligent thought.”
He grinned and dipped his head.
“Of course, it could have been the enlarging brain that caused a greater need to walk and carry
tools. We will never know, of course, but we can always try to test our theories based on the evidence at hand. From
Homo erectus
came a few more species, until we reach the final split in the family tree of tool-users. That split went from the species
Homo heidelbergensis
into the now-extinct
Homo neanderthalensis
, our long-lost cousins who died out over thirty thousand years ago, and the branch known as
Homo sapiens
, the scientific name for our modern Human species, approximately two hundred thousand years ago.”

Overhead the words
Sapiens = Wise
floated by. Oblivious to it, Dr. Mdee continued speaking.

“The progress of Human evolution was slow; it is only in the last few breaths in the timeline of the universe itself that we as a species have begun to evolve our technologies and our understandings. And of course, we are still searching for the meanings of life, the universe, and everything in between,”
Dr. Mdee continued.
“But we do know a few things.

“Our mutual ancestors’ earliest artworks, cave paintings and stone carvings, stem from over forty thousand years ago. Farming on a wide scale began just over ten to eleven thousand years ago—before your people somehow left our world,”
he added, making it clear this recorded projection was meant for the V’Dan people to see and understand.
“Copper tools were crafted seven thousand years ago, astronomy was being studied six thousand years ago, bronze alloys were smelted four and a half thousand years ago, and iron was in use three thousand years ago.

“I do not know the history or progression of your people and their civilizations, but ours only reached into space 330 years ago with our first artificial satellite,
Sputnik
,”
Mdee stated, bracing his forearm on his upraised knee, his posture and his expression that of a teacher confiding to a favorite student.
“
318
years ago, we landed the first Human on our moon, and 179 years ago, the first strong, fully recognized psychic walked
barefoot
on that same moon.

“Which, I admit, is a very long way from the footprints that were left by this fellow here,”
he added, turning just enough to tip his head at the skeleton he had partially excavated.
“We haven’t
found
his or her exact footprints, of course, just some footprints of others like him. Such things lie at the mercy and
the whims of fate, the right preserving circumstances, and luck. You can always take the time to view them on our data archives. Or perhaps even visit in person someday.

“Most certainly, I have not covered
all
of the paleoarchaeological evidence of our joint species’ evolution on this world . . . but then you are not listening to this as students enrolled in one of my classes right now. Perhaps you might be one of my students some year. I think I will look forward to that.”
He smiled and dipped his dark head.
“As it is, I shall simply end this lecture here with a smile, with my thanks for your attention, and with a good-bye from Olduvai Gorge, in the Province of Tanzania, on the continent of Africa, in the oldest known birthplace of the Human race on the planet Earth, our Motherworld. I must get back to work, now.
Aloha.
”

With that, the dark-skinned, beige-clad man turned back to his meticulous pick-and-brush work, gently excising the softer stone from the mineral-hardened bones in the ground. This time, Jackie didn’t have to pause the prepared audio she was projecting. She simply let the image shrink and fade into savannah. As the second movement of Vivaldi’s “Winter” began, she swept their view over the wild herds that were the fame of the continent, over the great gray bulks of elephants and long-necked giraffes, massive herds of grazing wildebeests and more.

That view included the visually stunning zebras, which elicited started exclamations of appreciation above and beyond what Jackie had expected. She firmed her concentration, spooling past the savannahs to glimpses of the ancient stone terraces, plazas, and courtyards of the great Eastern African civilizations, interspersed with modern towns and cities. From there, it was a leap to the great island of
Madagascar
and some of its unusual, razor-sharp karst formations, then up over the
Indian Ocean
to the southern jungles of
India
, with its rich histories, giant cities, and colorful markets.

Mumbai, Indian Subcontinent, Population 48,905,800+, Earth’s Most Heavily Populated City
was the most important of those. From there, they rose up into the snow-choked Himalayas—
Mount Everest, Also Called Sagarmatha and Chomolungma, Highest Mountain Measured from Sea Level, Elevation 8,848 Meters
—and its elevation in approximate V’Dan units.

That image retreated westward locally, heading down the ever-broadening Tiers, but the view actually soared
to
the west Earth-wise, heading in a great loop over the drier regions of the ’Stans, provinces that still occasionally gave the Terran United Planets fits of religious conflicts. From there, they went to
Istanbul, Formerly Constantinople, Seat of the (Eastern) Roman Empire, Which Lasted for 1,480 Years and Ended 834 Years Ago
—on up to Moscow—
Population 24,567,150+
—past farmlands and taiga forests, all the way to the
Arctic Ocean
and its wintery cap of ice.

Everywhere the images went, they paused now and then for a second or two to see people smiling and waving, sometimes shyly, sometimes enthusiastically. Every last Terran Human visible utterly lacked V’Dan jungen marks; skin tones ranged from pale creamy white to ruddy peach, olive tan to chocolate brown and the intense melanin of Dr. Mdee. In some places, the skin colors were mixed; in others, one shade or another predominated, and a few had freckles, or moles, but no unnaturally colorful marks, no unnatural shapes or patterns. Just Humans.

As the second movement came to an end, they settled briefly in a village on the edge of the Arctic Ocean, ice-blocked and lit only by streetlights. The inhabitants were willing to smile, though; pale-skinned, dark-haired, round-faced, the people of that village had braved the blowing snow and arctic breezes that were as much felt by
telekinesis
as seen, though the air that was stirred was warm, not icy-cold. They came outside and waved at the incipient Ambassador, giving her a view of their world. The winds slowed, and the snow switched from streaming past to swirling down out of the sky, dusting everything lightly.

The music started up again in the third movement. Leaving behind that winter-locked fishing village, the images arched once more up into the troposphere and back down again, down to the meandering barrier of the
Great Wall of China
. Terraced rice paddies beyond its edges turned into karst mountains, and from there became jungle-cloaked mountains that turned into flatter terrain with waterways and ancient temples labeled as
Angkor Wat, Cambodia
. From there, the landscape turned to islands aplenty before reaching the continent of
Australia
, its animals, people.

They swept around it and came back up through the islands, and from the coastlines of
Vietnam
and
Korea
to the great city of
Beijing, China, Asian Continent, Population 46,722,550+
and its sprawling mix of buildings ancient and new. From there, they traveled up past glimpses of the herders of
Mongolia
into skies above the remote mountainous reaches of the
Kamchatka Peninsula
and the
Bering Strait
. Down over the upper reaches of
Alaska
and the start of the
Rocky Mountains
in the western Canadian provinces, to snowcapped peaks, evergreen trees, bright-spangled cities, vineyards, and fertile valleys, to sun-drenched beaches that turned into a leap across the Pacific once again.

Once more, the viewpoint drew near the
Hawai’ian Islands
, only this time to see the world briefly turn into an illustration. With the ocean stripped away, the label on the Big Isle became
Mauna Kea, Tallest Mountain on Earth from Base to Peak, 9,966 Meters (4,200 Above Sea Level)
with the number translated into V’Dan measurements.

Swerving up through the island chains to an island a bit north of the capital, the viewpoint glided down to one of a set of buildings amidst a sprawling city.
Music Department, Honolulu University, Oahu, Hawai’ian Islands.
Tucked into the building, through grand doors that opened up into a lobby, and into an indoor auditorium filled with red-cushioned seats facing a stage, the watching V’Dan got to
see
the actual musicians clad in black-and-white clothes. They performed sweetly on their violins, violas, cellos, bass violins, and, of course, the harpsichord.

The moment those soft, sweet chords exploded abruptly into passionate, rapid nodes from the soloist, the ceiling vanished, and the world fell away. The view rose up through the sky, faster and faster, until the Earth itself fell away within just a few heartbeats; by the time the orchestra joined the soloist, the planet was nothing more than a marble, while the surface of the Moon zoomed in fast and close, eliciting startled gasps across the crowd. The surface spun rapidly, then slowed, showing primitive equipment abandoned alongside pristine-looking, barred bootprints in the gritty, barren, gray-white soil of a fenced-off area near a dome-sheltered colony.

A voice-over—the only one during the music—came on
the moment the dome and fence appeared. Since it was in English, the V’Dan version accompanied the location name. The words
Apollo 11 Landing Site, Tranquility Base, Sea of Tranquility, Luna (Moon)
were accompanied by beeping noises and a voice saying,
“That’s one small step for Man . . . one giant leap for Mankind.”
At that same moment, five screens popped up at each Plaza, showing the grainy, overblown, heavily shadowed image of the very first of the original visiting astronauts slowly and cautiously hopping down the short reach from the bottom of their lander to the lunar surface.

Then all of that spun away, too, zooming over the terrain to another location with another dome, and another fenced-off area. This time, though, the footprints in the lunar soil were a mix of shoes with a much more complex imprint than bars, patently bare-foot marks replete with individual toes . . . and a lunar-soil version of a snow angel. There was no voice-over, but there was another billboard display, a close-up of the last line of a large, square, bronze-cast plaque near that grit-swept angel that read,
“. . . Let the Men of Earth Never Underestimate the Power of a Woman Again.”

The Moon leaped away, vanishing along with the Earth into the starry night, lit only by the local star, which expanded back into normal, natural, V’Dan-style daylight as the last few notes of music played. Overhead, the clouds glowed gray-white, and only a few stray flakes could be seen wiggling their way downward. The great projection screens abruptly reordered themselves, switching from various wild angles aimed upward to zeroing in and focusing on the two Humans kneeling facing each other at the front of the lines of equally kneeling Terrans.

For one single heartbeat, silence reigned supreme, broken only by tiny little zaps from overhead. Then a massive surge of sound crashed over them. Even the restrained First Tier attendees cheered and clapped palm to palm, and whistles could be heard from the Second Tier on back. Wave after wave of enthusiastic sound that pressed in all around.

It was a good thing her performance didn’t have to move on to anything else right away. Master of Ceremonies didn’t even bother to raise and stretch out his hands for a full minute or more, and that gave Jackie and Li’eth time to replenish the
energy she had used. Indeed, more was coming in all around them, a psychic storm of kinetic inergy being shed by living beings who were thrilled beyond decorum by what they had just seen. Even Jackie could see the aurastorm of enthusiasm, delight, awe, passion, curiosity, and more.

Both of them had to shut their eyes and just breathe while they stabilized themselves. As the noise gradually died—very gradually—Li’eth managed to push to his feet and helped lift Jackie to hers. It took them both another half-minute to untangle their minds, but that was fine, since the crowd was still applauding with fervor.

(
I think my knees may threaten to give out when we stop touching,
) he murmured in her mind. His gray-and-burgundy eyes were very bright. A little dazed, even. (
That felt . . . riding along with your mind, giving you the energy to do all of that . . . That was very much like lovemaking . . . but without any sex whatsoever. I don’t . . . I’m not sure how to recover from that . . .
)

(
I haven’t . . . I was told a Gestalt was intense,
) she agreed. (
I’ve been in multimind efforts, as many as twenty—no, twenty-four, that one time—but never a Gestalt. We were one for almost all of it. And now I have to face your mother with the knowledge that we have been as intimate as two minds can be without bodily acts . . . and I am trying
very
hard not to blush right now.
)

(
. . . Do you think this will have affected the progression of our bond?
) he asked hesitantly.

Oddly enough, the question cleared her mind with the urge to make a tart retort. (Do you think?)

Li’eth thought about it a moment, then bowed over their joined hands. (Good.
I am growing tired of constantly having to retire from your presence. I’ll “encourage” Mother to assign me as swiftly as possible.
)

(
Good.
) The applause was finally dying down. She dipped him a curtsy though that was a Terran gesture, not a V’Dan one. (
We do have to face her right now, though.
)