World without Stars (6 page)

“Frankly, I’m skeptical about our chances of simply building an interplanetary maser,” I confessed.

“Oh, we’ll do that, kind of incidentally,” Valland said. “Same as we’ll make conspicuous marks in the territory around here,
in case somebody comes flyin’ by. But Yo was right, a while back. They aren’t likely to have the right kind of radio receivers
on Yonder. And as for a rescue party, well, at best it’ll be an almighty long time before anybody figures out what could’ve
happened to us, and I’ll make book that nobody does. Not with so scanty and confused a record to go on.

“So … I figure our sole decent chance is to flit to Yonder in person. We needn’t build a very fancy spaceboat, you realize.
A one-man job for a one-way trip, with no special radiation screenin’ required. I’ve checked. Been an engineer myself, several
kinds of engineer, now and then, so I know. One powerplant is almost intact. Repairman’s data in the microfiles aboard ship
amount to a complete set of plans, which we can modify for our particular purposes. What machine tools we don’t now have,
we can repair, or build from scratch.

“Sure, sure, a long, tough job. The precision aspects, like assemblin’ control panels or adjustin’ drive units, they’ll be
worse than any sheer labor. But we can do it, given patience.”

“Hold on,” I objected. “The brute force problem alone is too much for us. Six men can’t juggle tons of metal around with their
muscles. We’ll need cranes and—and make your own list. We’ll have to start this project down near the bottom of shipyard technology.

“Hugh, we haven’t got enough man-years. If we don’t go memory-crazy first, we’ll still be making bedplates when the supplementary
chemicals for the food tanks give out. And I refuse to believe we can do anything about
that
.”

“Probably not,” Valland admitted. “I never claimed we could start a whole biomolecular industry. But you’re over-lookin’ somethin’,
skipper. True, half a dozen men make too small a labor force to build a spaceship, even by cannibalizin’, in the time we have.
However— Hey!”

He sprang to his feet.

“What is it?” I cried.

“Shhh. Somethin’ out there. Approaching’ real slow and careful. But two-legged, and carryin’ things. Let’s not scare ’em off.
Valland stepped to the ladder and handed me his goggles. “Here, you stay put. Cover me as well as you can, but don’t switch
on any lights. Our kind of light may well
hurt their eyes. I’ll kindle a torch to see by. They must know fire.”

I stared and stared into murk. Shadow shapes in shadow land …. “Looks as if they’re armed,” I muttered.

“’Course they are. Wouldn’t you be? But I doubt they’ll slip a pigsticker into me on no provocation.” Valland laughed, most
softly but like a boy. “You know,” he said, “I was just speakin’ of the devil, and what came by? A bigger pair of horns than
Othello thought he had!”

I didn’t follow his mythological references, but his meaning was plain. My own heart jumped inside me.

There is an old game in which you show a picture of a nonhuman to your friends and ask them to describe the being. No xenological
coordinates allowed; they must use words alone. The inexperienced player always falls back on analogy. Like Valland, simply
to be jocular, remarking that the Azkashi resembled web-footed kangaroos, a bit shorter than men, with hands and hairless
gray skins, bulldog muzzles, mule ears, and eyes as big as the Round Tower. Which means nothing to that ninety-nine percent
of the human race who have never been on Earth and have never heard of animals many of which are extinct anyway.

Myself, I think the game is silly. I’d be satisfied to speak of bipeds adapted to a world mostly swamp and water. I would
mention the great yellow eyes, which saw only a short way into those frequencies we call red and otherwise had to focus infrared
waves—largely because they could also see fairly well at night. I might say the beings didn’t have nostrils, but closable
slits beneath the ears, since this gave their voices an odd snarling quality. The barrel chests were also significant, betokening
a metabolism that required more oxygen per breath than we who are blessed with iron-based hemoglobin. It is certainly worth
recording that the species
was bisexual, viviparous, and homeothermic, though not technically mammalian.

In general, though, I don’t care what image you develop. What matters about a people is technology, thought, art, the whole
pattern of life.

As for technics, the score of hunters who entered our compound were high-level paleolithic. Their weapons were spears, tomahawks,
daggers, and blowguns. Stone, bone and wood were beautifully worked and tastefully ornamented. They went nude except for a
sort of leather harness, which supported a pouch as well as tools and armament. But an older one who seemed to be their leader
had a representation of the galaxy tattooed on his head.

We were relieved to find no obviously alien semantics. These people would be much easier to understand than the Yonderfolk—or
so we thought. For example, they had individual names, and their gestures were the kind humans would make in attempting sign
language. When we fetched gifts—a steel knife for ya-Kela the boss and some bits of plastic and other junk for his followers—they
yelped and danced with delight. They had brought presents of their own, local handicrafts, which we accepted with due dignity.
There came an embarrassing moment, several hours later, when three Azkashi who had slipped out into the woods returned with
a big game animal for us. We were doubtless expected to eat it, and had no idea if it would poison us. But Valland carried
the situation off by soaking the body in camp fuel and setting it alight on a heap of wood. Our visitors got the idea at once:
this was how the strangers who indicated they had come from the galaxy accepted an offering.

“In fact,” Valland remarked to me, “they’re smart fellows. They must’ve watched us from the woods for a long time before decidin’
to send a delegation. My guess is they waited for the galaxy to rise; it’s a god or whatnot to them, and then they felt safer
against our
mana
. But now that they’re here
and know we don’t mean any harm, they’re tryin’ hard for communication.”

Ya-Kela was, at least, and so was Valland. Most of the other hunters left after a while, to take word back home. Man and nonman
squatted in the compound, by firelight, drew pictures and exchanged gestures. Rorn complained about the darkness outside our
hut. I overruled him. “We’ve seen them cover their eyes against our normal illumination,” I said. “We don’t want them to go
away. They may be our labor force.”

“Indeed?” Rorn said. “How’ll you pay them?”

“With metal. I don’t know how many thousands of knives and saws and planes we can make out of scrap from the ship, and you
must have noticed how ya-Kela appreciates the blade we gave him. I saw him holding it up once and singing to it.”

“Nice theory. Only … captain, I’ve dealt with primitives too. Generally they don’t make proper helpers for a civilized man.
They don’t have the drive, persistence, orderliness, not even the capability of learning.”

“Rather like your caveman ancestors, huh, Yo?” Urduga gibed.

Rorn flushed. “All right, call it a culture pattern if you want. It’s still real.”

“Maybe it isn’t in this case,” I said. “We’ll find out.”

With a good bit more hope in me, I started organizing us for work. First we had to jury-rig a better lighting system aboard
the
Meteor
, so we could operate effectively. Next, with spacesuits doubling as diving rigs, we must patch most of the holes in the hull,
seal off the remaining compartments, pump out the water and float her ashore. Then there’d be the construction of a drydock,
or whatever we decided was best. Then we must take a complete inventory, so we’d know exactly what was possible for us to
build; and lay concrete plans; and— The list looked infinite. But we had to begin somewhere. By burning torch and electric
flare, we rafted out to the wreck.

Valland stayed behind, dealing with ya-Kela. That didn’t look very strenuous, and again Rorn protested. “I don’t give a belch
if it’s fair or not,” I threw back at him. “Somebody has to spend full time learning the language, and Hugh’s got more talent
for that sort of thing than any two of you clumpfeet put together.”

Which was true. With the help of his omnisonor for noises that the human throat would not form, he could soon produce every
Azkashi phoneme; and then it was not so much linguistics as a sense of poetry that was needed to fit them into meaningful
phrases.

I was not too surprised when, after several Earth-days, he told me that ya-Kela and the others wanted to go home—taking him
along. He was eager to make a visit. What could I do but agree?

W
ITH A
woodsranger’s wariness, ya-Kela reserved judgment. Perhaps he had misunderstood those few words and gestures the stranger
called ya-Valland could make. Perhaps ya-Val-land did not really claim to be the emissary of God.

For surely he had curious weaknesses. He was as night blind as any downdevil once he took off his fish-resembling mask. Without
tail or footwebs, he stumbled awkward through the marshes; and whenever the party swam across a body of water, he was still
more clumsy and soon grew tired. Besides, he must push those things he carried on his back ahead of him, lashed to a log.
One could accept that he did not speak the speech of the Pack—God must use a tongue more noble—but he was ignorant of the
simplest matters, must actually be restrained from walking into a dart bush. There might be some magical reason for his not
touching ordinary food and, instead, opening little packets of powder and mixing them with water to swell the bulk before
he cooked himself a meal. But why must he send the water itself steaming through a thing of bottles joined by a tube, rather
than lap up a drink on his way?

Ya-Eltokh, one of the four who had remained to accompany them back, growled, “He is weirder than any of the Herd. And that
great thing he came in, sitting out in Lake Silence! How sure are you that he is not some downdevil animal sent to trap us?”

“If so, the Herd has been clever,” ya-Kela said, “for our watchers told how their canoes fled when the strangers tried
to come near. And you know well that prisoners we tortured were made to confess that the downdevils did not appear to have
anything to do with that which, generations ago, came from the sky. Why, then, should the enemy have brought this new manifestation
about?” He signed the air. “I am the One of the Pack. The thought was mine that we should seek the strangers out, for they
might be from God. If I was wrong, it is my souls that will suffer; but with this hand I will plunge the first spear into
ya-Valland.”

He hoped that would not come to pass. The big ugly creature was so likable in his fashion, and the music he made was somehow
more important than the sharp blade he had given. He explained, after much fumbling on both sides, that the tune he made most
often was a song to his she. But when he heard those notes, little ghosts ran up and down the skin of ya-Kela. There was strong
magic in that song.

They continued to seek understanding whenever they camped. Ya-Valland guided the lessons with marvelous skill. By the time
they reached the lairs, he could do a little real talking.

It was good to be back in hill country. The Herd fighters seldom ventured into this land of long ridges and darkling valleys,
noisy rivers and silent woods. Ya-Kela snuffed a wind that bore the odor of ninla nests, heard the remote scream of a kurakh
on the prowl, saw God swirl radiant above Cragdale, and bayed to call his folk. They slipped from dells and thickets until
the trail was a stream of lithe, padding hunters, and went together to the caves where the Pack dwelt.

Ya-Kela took ya-Valland into his own place. His aunt, su-Kulka, made the guest welcome and prepared a bed. His she and youngs
were frightened and kept in the background, but that was as it should be anyhow. Now ya-Kela settled down to toil with the
newcomer as he might have settled down to chasing a onehorn till it dropped. And as God mounted yet
higher in heaven, serious talk became possible. It went haltingly, with many misunderstandings; but it went.

The great question was hardest to pose and get answered. Ya-Valland seemed to make an honest effort, but his words contradicted
each other. Yes, he was from God. No, he was not of God … Finally he swung to asking questions himself. Ya-Kela replied, in
the hope of making himself clear when his turn came again.

“God is the Begetter, the One of the World. All others are less than Him. We pray to God alone, as He has commanded,” ya-Kela
said, pointing and acting. He returned from the cave mouth and squatted against his tail once more. The fire was big, throwing
the painted walls into lurid smoky relief. But it didn’t appear to make much light for ya-Valland.

“The downdevils are the enemies of God. They deny Him, as does the Herd which serves them. But we know we are right to course
for God: because He does not rule our lives. He asks only worship and upright conduct of us. Furthermore, He lights the night
for us, on those times when He is risen after sunset. And then the downdevils can see but poorly.” Mutter: “Almost as poorly
as you, my friend-?-enemy.” Aloud: “Such of the Herd as we have captured when they came raiding say the downdevils made the
world and rule it. And true, they have powerful things to give. But the price is freedom.”

“The Herd people are like you, then?” ya-Valland asked.

“Yes and no. Many of them resemble us, and we have learned over generations that certain Azkashi whom Herd raiders take prisoner
are used for breeding stock. But others look most unlike any member of this Pack or any other Pack, and none of them think
like us. They are afraid of God, even when the sun is in the sky at the same time to hide Him; and they worship the downdevils.”

That much conversation took the entire while between two sleeps. Then ya-Kela must judge disputes among his folk;
for he was the One. Meanwhile ya-Valland studied language with su-Kulka? su-Iss, and other wise old shes.