The forest hadn’t been hunted this way for several generations. Perhaps that explained his luck so far. Or maybe it was because Sepak had left a cluster of bright feathers and butterfly wings at the foot of a tall tree, as sacrifice to a spirit whose name he’d forgotten, but who his grandfather had said was strong and benevolent.
I’m doin’ all right, he thought. But bloody ocker hell … I wish I could take a bath!
Sepak caught his reflection in the shallow water. He was a sight, all right. Kinky hair greased back with marsupial fat. Dark skin streaked with pale, muddy tans and dabs of leaf sap. Only when he grinned was there any semblance to a twenty-first-century man, whose teeth suddenly seemed too white, too well ordered and perfect.
All around he sensed life slither and crawl, from tiny beetles scrabbling through the forest detritus all the way to the high canopy, where he glimpsed quick patches of fur, the glint of scales, the flash of eyes. Branches rustled. Things slowly stalked other things. You had to be patient to see any of it though. It wasn’t a skill you learned in school.
For the most part, the main thing you noticed was the quiet.
Suddenly, the calm was interrupted by a mob of foraging birds, which spilled into the tiny clearing in a storm of feathers. They swept in from the right, a chirping, rowdy chaos of colors and types. After that instant of startlement, Sepak kept perfectly still. He’d read about this phenomenon before, but never seen it until now.
Small, blue-feathered birds dove straight into the humus, flinging leaves and twigs as they chased fleeing insects. Above these, a larger, white- and yellow-plumed species hovered, diving to snatch anything stirred into sight by the bold blue ones. Other varieties swarmed the trunks and looping tree roots. It was amazing to witness how the species cooperated, like members of a disciplined jungle cleanup squad.
Then Sepak noticed some of them squabbling, fighting over this or that squirming morsel, and revised his first impression. The white-and-yellow birds were opportunistic, he now saw, taking advantage of the smaller ones’ industriousness. He watched a black-tailed root hopper swipe a tidbit already wriggling between the jaws of an irate bird in bright orange plumes. Other breeds did the same, warily keeping an eye out for each other while they worked over the trees’ lower bark, gobbling parasites and protein-rich bugs before any competitor could get at them.
This wasn’t teamwork, then. It was a balance of threat and bluster and force. Each scrounger fought to keep whatever it found while taking advantage of the others.
Funny. Why do they keep together, then?
It seemed to Sepak the white-and-yellows could have harassed the smaller birds more than they did. They missed opportunities because they were distracted, spending half their time scanning the forest canopy overhead.
He found out why. All at once, several yellows squawked in alarm, triggering a flurry of flapping wings. Faster than an eye-blink, all the birds vanished … taking cover a bare instant before a large hawk flashed through the clearing, talons empty, screeching in frustration.
The yellows’ warning saved everybody, not just themselves.
In moments the raptor was gone, and the multispecies mob was back again, resuming its weird, bickering parody of cooperation.
Each plays a role, he realized. All benefit from one type’s guarding skill. All profit from another’s talent for pecking.…
Clearly none of them particularly liked each other. There was tension. And that very tension helped make it all work. It united the entity that was the hunting swarm as it moved out of sight through the towering trees.
“Huh,” Sepak thought, marveling how much one could learn by just sitting still and observing. It wasn’t a skill one learned in the frenetic pace of modern society. Perhaps, he considered, there might be advantages to this adventure, after all.
Then his stomach growled. All right, he thought, rising and picking up his crude spears. I hear you. Be patient.
Soon he was loping quietly, scanning the branches, but not as a passive watcher anymore. Now he set out through the trees—listening with his ears, seeking with his eyes—hunting clues to where on this little plateau he might find that next meal.
It’s now official. Scientists at NASA confirm that their, oldest operating spacecraft, Voyager 2, has become the first man-made object to pass completely beyond the solar system.
Actually, the boundaries of the sun’s family are debatable. Last century, Voyager’s distance exceeded that of Pluto, the ninth planet. Another milestone was celebrated when the venerable spacecraft reached the solar shock front, where it met atoms from interstellar space. Most astronomers, however, say Voyager was still within old Sol’s influence until it passed through the “heliopause” and left behind the solar wind, which happened in the year 2037, a decade later than predicted.
Data from Voyager’s little ten-watt transmitter help scientists refine their models of the Universe. But what most people find astonishing is that the primitive robot—launched sixty-five years ago—still functions at all. It defies every expectation, by its designers or modern engineers. Perhaps some preserving property of deep space is responsible. But a more colorful suggestion has been offered by the Friends of St. Francis Assembly [ SIG.Rel.disc. 12-RsyPD 634399889.058], a Catholic special interest group that contends Voyager’s survival was “miraculous,” in the exact sense of the word.
“We now strongly believe the oldest heavenly commandment commissions humanity to go forth, observe God’s works, and glorify Him by giving names to all things.
“In that quest, no human venture has dared so much or succeeded as well as Voyager. It has given us moons and rings and distant planets, great valleys and craters and other marvels. It plumbed Jupiter’s storms and Saturn’s lightning and sent home pictures of the puzzle that is Miranda. No other modern enterprise has so glorified the Creator, showing us as much of His grand design, as faithful Voyager, our first emissary to the stars.”
A colorful and not unpleasant thought to contemplate these days, as the airwaves fill once more with hints of looming crisis. It’s a touch of optimism we might all do well to think about.
This is Corrine Fletcher, reporting for Reuters III from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in New Pasadena, California.
[ reporter-bio: C.FLETCHER-REUT.III. Credibility ratings: CaAd-2, Viewers’ Union (2038). BaAb-1, World Watchers Ltd., 2038.]
• MESOSPHERE
The paleogeologists wanted to know what was going on.
“All these strange events, Stan … holes in China, pillars of smoke at sea. Do you have any idea what it’s about?”
Even if there hadn’t been a cordon sanitaire of Danish and NATO soldiers around the Tangoparu dome, Dr. Nielsen and the others would certainly have suspected something was happening. The whole world suspected, and Stan had never been much good at poker.
“There are rumors, Stan,” Nielsen said shortly after the military arrived. “Have you seen today’s noon edition of the New Yorker? There’s a correlated survey linking many of these bizarre phenomena into a pattern.” Stan shrugged, avoiding the blond scientist’s eyes. But that only intensified suspicion, of course. “Do you know something about all this Stan? Your graviscan program, those troops, the strange quakes … it’s all connected, isn’t it?”
What could he say? Stan started avoiding his friends, spending his few free moments out on the moraine instead, walking and worrying.
He’d been in constant touch with George Hutton, of course, ever since Alex and Teresa made good their escape from New Zealand. And he had to admit the logic behind the uncomfortable alliance with Colonel Spivey. What else could they do? It was Trinity site all over again—Alamogordo in 1945. The genie was out of the bottle. All they could do now was try to manage it as well as possible.
SOVS, RUSS, EUROPS AND HAN IN N.Y. TALKS.
GEACPS BOYCOTTS. NATO STALLS.
That was the ScaniaPress headline after one more zine exposé. A whistle blower inside the EUROP mission to the
U.N. told how private negotiations among the great powers had been going on for over a fortnight. Outrage roiled through the World Data Net. What were governments doing—actually keeping people in the dark about a crisis? How dare they?
In absence of solid information, a myriad of rumors flew.
… It’s the melting of the ice caps that’s making the Earth shake …
… It’s secret weapon testing. Treaty violations. We’ve got to call in the tribunals before it’s too late …
… These aren’t earthly phenomena at all. We’re being softened up by UFOs …
… It’s an alignment of the planets. The Babylonians were right predicting …
… Overpopulation—ten billion souls can’t stand the pressure. The psychic strain alone …
… Could we have awakened something ancient? Something terrible? I caught sight of a dragon, snooping a public memory file. Have others out there seen it too? …
… Gaia, it is our Mother, shivering in her sleep, at the pain we’ve caused her …
… I don’t have any idea what it is! But I’ll bet there are people in high places who do. They have a duty to tell us what’s going on!
More headlines on ABC, TASS, Associated Press—
GREAT POWERS POWWOW, NIHON STAYS AWAY.
Holos of departing diplomats are analyzed by professionals and amateur hackers, who enhance every face, every pore, and publish speculative analyses of flesh tones, blink rates, nervous ticks—
… the Russ ambassador was scared …
… the EUROP team knew more than they were telling …
… clearly there’s collusion between NATO and ASEAN …
Stan was impressed with the creative energy out there. Data traffic soared, straining even the capacious fiber cable channels. Reserve capacity was brought on-line to cope.
A holopop group, Space Colander, produced a new number called “Straining Reality”—an instant hit. Underground poets sent paeans to strangeness migrating from computer node to computer node, circuiting the globe faster than the sun.
Stan did not participate, of course. Except for his rare walks, he spent most of his time conversing over military lines with Alex and with Glenn Spivey’s physicists, piecing together the secrets of the gazer. Some were starting to fall into place, such as how the beams coupled with surface matter. It seemed they had discovered a whole new spectrum, completely at right angles to the colors of light. With these discoveries, science would never be the same.
His darkest premonitions were like the ones those physicists in New Mexico must have felt, nearly a century ago. But those men had been wrong in their worst fears, hadn’t they? Their bomb, which might have wrought searing Armageddon, instead proved to be a blessing. After scaring everyone away from major war for three generations, it finally convinced the nations to sign covenants of peace. Perhaps the same sort of result would come of this. Humanity didn’t always have to be foolish and destructive.
Perhaps we’ll show wisdom this time, as well. There’s always a chance.
Hours later Stan was still hard at work, predicting beam-exit points so that Spivey’s teams could get there in advance to study the effects, when he found himself blinking at his work screen with a weird picture still planted in his brain. It came and went before he could focus clearly, and now the display showed nothing abnormal. Perhaps it was just a figment of fatigue. Nevertheless, he retained a distinct afterimage … of a glittering smile set in a lizard’s face, and behind that a whipping, barbed and jeweled tail.
In 1828 Benjamin Morrell discovered, off Namibia, a treasure island covered with guano. A layer more than twenty-five-feet thick had been deposited by generations of cormorants, cape gannets, and penguins. Morrell called it “the richest manure pile in the world.” By 1844 up to five hundred ships at a time crowded round Ichaboe Isle. Eight thousand men carted off tons of “white gold” to make the gardens of England grow. A lucrative if messy business.
Then the guano was gone. The ships departed Ichaboe for Chile, the Falklands, anywhere birds nested near rich fishing grounds. Like Nauru, whose king sold half his tiny nation’s surface area to fund his people’s buying spree, each newfound deposit lasted a little while, made a few men rich, then vanished as if it had never been.
Many other ecological crises came and went. Shoals of fishes vanished. Vast swarms of birds died. Later, some fisheries recovered. And protected nesting grounds pulled some cormorants and gannets back from the verge of extinction.
Then, one day, someone noticed the birds were again doing what birds do … right out there on the rocks. Nor did they seem to mind much when men with shovels came—carefully this time, not to disturb the nestlings—and carried off in bags what the birds no longer had any use for.
It was a renewable resource after all. Or it could be, if managed properly.
Let the fish swarm and the currents flow and the sun shine upon the stony coasts. The birds rewarded those with patience.
• IONOSPHERE
Mark Randall could almost feel all the telescopes aimed at him. The sense of being watched caused a prickle on his neck as he maneuvered Intrepid, toward the strobing flash of the instrument package.
Naturally, the great powers were observing his ship. And the ninety-two news agencies and the Big 900 corporations and probably thousands of amateur astronomers whose instruments were within line of sight.
Some probably have a better idea what I’m chasing than I do, he contemplated.
“That thing wasn’t put there by any rocket,” Elaine Castro told him as she peered over his shoulder at the spinning cylinder caught in the shuttle’s spotlight. “This orbit is too weird. And look. The thing doesn’t even have standard attachment points!”
“I don’t think it was launched … normally,” Mark answered. Neither of them was saying anything new. “Need any help prepping for EVA?” he asked his new partner. “You’ve updated your inertial units?”
The stately black woman laid a space-gloved hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “Yes, Mommy. And I promise, I’ll call if I need anything.”
Mark blinked with a sudden wave of déjà vu, as if someone else were reading his lines in a play. Since when was he the worrywart, the double-checker, the fanatic for detail?
Since his last partner had been taken from him by something unfathomable, of course. “Well, give me a suit integrity readout from the airlock anyway, before pumping down.”
“Aye, aye, Cap’n.” She saluted, primly and sarcastically. Elaine fastened her helmet and left to fetch the beeping mystery they’d been sent chasing round the world to claim.
How did you get there? he silently asked the spinning object. There were laws of dynamics that had to be bent just to reach this bizarre trajectory. No record showed any rocket launch during the last month that might have sent that thing on such a path.
But there are other records than those released by NORAD and SERA … records of inverted tornadoes and columns of vacuum at sea level … of vanishing aircraft and rainbows tied in half hitches.
His panels shone green. Happy green also lit where Elaine’s suit proclaimed itself in working order. Still, his eyes roved, scanning telemetry, attitude, life support, and especially navigation. Mark whistled softly between his teeth. He sang, half consciously, in a toneless whisper.
“I yam where I yam, and that’s all where I yam …”
His crewmate emerged into sight, waving cheerfully as she jetted toward the shining cylinder Mark watched like a mother bear as she lassoed the spinning object and reeled it behind her to Intrepid’s stowage bay. Even as Elaine cycled back inside, Mark kept alert, watching not only his instruments, but also the Earth … which had once seemed such a reliable place, but of late had seemed much more twitchy, and prone even to sudden fits of wrath.
Worldwide Long Range Solutions Special Interest Group [ SIG AeR,WLRS 253787890.546], Special Sub-Forum 562: Crackpot-Iconoclast Social Theories.
Do hidden influences control human
affairs? Forget superstitions like astrology. I mean serious proposals, like Kondratieff waves, which seem to track technology boom-bust cycles, though no one knows why.
Another idea’s called “conservation of crises.” It contends that during any given century there’s just so much panic to go around.
Oh, surely there are ups and downs, like the Helvetian disaster and the second cancer plague. Still, from lifetime to lifetime you might say it all balances out so the average person remains just as worried about the future as her grandmother was.
Take the great peace-rush of the nineties. People were astonished how swiftly world statesmen started acting reasonably. Under the Emory Accords, leaders of India and Pakistan smoothed over their fathers’ mutual loathing. Russ and Han buried the hatchet, and the superpowers themselves agreed to the first inspection treaties. Earth’s people had been bankrupting themselves paying for armaments nobody dared use, so it seemed peace had come just in time.
But what if the timing was no coincidence? Imagine if, by some magic, Stalin and Mao had been replaced in 1949 by leaders just brimming with reason and integrity. Or all the paranoid twits had been given sanity pills, back when the world held just two billion humans, when the rain forests still bloomed, when the ozone was intact and Earth’s resources were still barely tapped?
It would have been too easy, then, to solve every crisis known or imagined! Without the arms race or those wasteful surrogate wars, per capita wealth would have skyrocketed. By now we’d be launching starships.
If you accept the bizarre notion that humanity somehow thrives on crisis, then it’s clear we had to have the cold war from 1950 to 1990, to keep tensions high until the surplus ran out. Only then, with ecological collapse looming, was it okay to turn away from missile threats and ideologies. Because by then we all faced real problems.
Now some of you may wonder why I devote my weekly column to such a strange idea. It’s because of all these rumors we’re hearing on the net. It seems there’s a new crisis looming … something nebulous and frightening which strains the edges of reality.