Perhaps it runs all the way through. There might not be any interior walls at all. The building may just be a place for congregation. In this warm climate, the only real reason for shelter is to keep off the drizzle. And personal privacy. We humans have even adopted the dress of Polynesians. Sarongs.
She smiled wrily. Since Janet died, Indira was the only woman on the planet who covered her breasts. The young women simply wrapped the sarongs around their waists.
As they neared the building, Indira began to spot owoc and gukuy moving about. There were not many of them, and they were not engaged in the "dance" which Joseph had described. (Which, she now suspected, was some kind of religious ritual.) The handful of owoc she could see were scattered about, browsing on patches of oruc. The gukuy—she counted three of them—were all clustered in a field of upunu. Now that she was closer, she could see that the field had a cultivated look about it. Yet there was something odd about its appearance, which nagged at her memory until recognition came.
That field's absolutely infested with uduwo snails. Why don't they do something about them?
(It was not until later that she remembered what Julius had told her. The beaks of the gukuy were adapted for eating meat, not vegetation. The gukuy cultivated upunu fields not for the plants themselves but for the snails which fed on them.)
Indira now began rehearsing her speech of peace and well-wishes. Halfway through the rehearsal, the speech became a moot point.
The owoc, it turned out, had their own ideas on proper social behavior.
Suddenly, the four owoc with them began hooting loudly. Kupu's hoots were especially deafening.
Immediately, the owoc and the gukuy in the valley stopped what they were doing and looked up.
Within a few seconds, hoots were being exchanged back and forth between the owoc on the slope and the owoc in the valley. Indira understood the hoots of her owoc companions—poetic variations, basically, on the general theme of "howdy." She could almost understand the hoots which came in return.
It's a different dialect. But I don't think—a sigh of relief—that it's a separate language.
At first, the gukuy observing the scene showed no reaction but a mild mottling in their mantles. Green, Indira noted with relief. But then they spotted the humans; and their mantles turned, in an instant, scarlet and ochre.
Fear. Indecision. What frightening creatures we must appear to them. Nothing on this planet looks remotely like human beings.
The owoc in the valley seemed totally unconcerned about the humans (whom they had certainly spotted, at this distance). The beings were lumbering toward the interlopers, issuing hoots which Indira could generically recognize as happy greetings. And their mantles were now solid green, untouched by even a trace of any other color.
But the three gukuy in the upunu field suddenly broke and raced toward the "temple," whistling loudly. A moment later, four other gukuy emerged from the building. A rapid exchange of sounds and whistles.
Everything seemed to be happening at once. By now, the two groups of owoc had met and were beginning to intermingle. Formality, Indira noted, did not seem to be a prominent feature of owoc culture. But her attention, for the moment, was on the temple.
A moment later, as she had feared, the seven gukuy in the temple re-emerged and began hurrying toward them.
Bearing weapons. The same type which the raiders had carried—those stone-tipped whips and long-spiked morning stars. (Flails and forks, the gukuy called them, as she would learn later.) And as they neared, she saw that blue was beginning to ripple in their mantles. Blue was a color rarely seen in the mantles of owoc.
Rage.
She saw the other humans in her party grow stiff and tense. Suddenly, at Joseph's command, the youngsters—
They're not youngsters anymore, you damn fool! They're warriors, and if you don't think fast they're going to react like warriors.
—reversed their grip on the spears.
Indira sighed with relief. Until she remembered that the grip which holds a spear in the point-down position of peace is the same one used to hurl it. And each of the—warriors—was carrying three spears.
She had not paid much attention to the military exercises, but she knew enough to know that Joseph had trained his people to start an attack with a cast of spears.
"Joseph!"
The youth did not look at her; his eyes remained fixed on the approaching gukuy. But he gestured with his hand, in a manner which simultaneously conveyed acknowledgement and surety. Then, when the gukuy were no more than thirty meters away, he hooted loudly:
we not good
peace
is break are
The gukuy suddenly stopped. The ochre in their mantles strengthened. Red fear remained, but the blue began to fade.
Joseph hooted again.
we must owoc
friends
us be are
The owoc from both groups suddenly began hooting back and forth. The exchange was too rapid for Indira to follow, even if she had been able to understand the dialect of the new ones. But whatever they were saying, there was no mistaking the reaction of the gukuy. The blue disappeared entirely, as did the red. Ochre remained, but it grew slowly dimmer. And within minutes, faint traces of dappled green began to appear.
That's one of the great advantages chromatophoric beings have over we poor humans. Even if they can't speak another's language, they can still read their emotions. What must they make of us, I wonder?
Incongruously, she snickered.
A bunch of miserable monsters, whose leader is always implacable about everything and one of whom is always in heat.
She glanced at Jens, and had to suppress an outright laugh.
Not far from the truth, actually. It's amazing how the youngsters adapt to the owoc. Even though they know that human color means nothing, they can't help reacting unconsciously to Jens' white skin. I think every youngster in the colony has shared either Jens or Karin Schmidt's bed. Or both.
(She'd mentioned that to Julius, once. The biologist had laughed, and said: "Yeah, I know. On this planet, the myth is going to be that white people are hyper-sexual. Give it a few generations and I wouldn't be surprised to see pale skin make a genetic comeback. I doubt if the Nazis would be pleased, though, given the circumstances. Unless they decided the owoc were honorary Aryans.")
Eventually, expressing themselves in owoc hoots which Indira and Joseph were able to interpret, the gukuy invited the humans into the building which Indira thought to be a temple. Indira immediately accepted.
The minute she walked up the ramp, and saw the interior of the building (as she had suspected, it was open all the way through), all doubt vanished. There was no mistaking the meaning of the huge figurine which rested at the center of the temple.
It was not a carving, but a construct—a wicker-like framework of some kind, embellished and decorated with shells, precious stones, and carved—horn?
She was deeply impressed by the artistry of the piece. The style was in no sense naturalistic. It rather reminded her of the exaggerated style of ancient African carvings. Except for the intricacy of the detail, which had a vague resemblance to the ornate idols in Hindu temples.
But even more than the stylistic resonances, she was stunned by the essence of the figurine itself. It was the statue of a gukuy, in repose. Deep green, in color. She thought that the curl of the arms had meaning, as well.
But whatever the specific significance of any particular detail of the statue, the sense of the whole was unmistakable. Light years apart, and thousands of year later in time, an alien race had produced a being whose vision could not have been so different from one glimpsed on Earth.
Staring at the statue, she took a deep breath. Then, for the first time since entering the valley, felt the tension wash out of her completely.
Siddartha Gautama. The Buddha.
Chapter 12
"The similarity's only general, of course," she explained to Julius aft
er she returned. "Until I learn the gukuy language, I won't be sure. Owoc is such a difficult language in which to convey precise meaning. Still, from what I could glean, their faith absolutely resonates with quasi-Buddhist conceptions."
"And just how did the teachings of the Buddha find their way to Ishtar—interstellar transcendentalism?" demanded Julius. "Have you become a mystic yourself now?"
Indira smiled. "No, Julius. I'm still the hard-boiled rationalist you know and love. But convergence operates on more than a biological level, my dear. It's not surprising at all, actually. Most of the great religions on Earth arose within a relatively short time, you know—in cultures scattered all over the planet. Beginning around a half millenium before the birth of Christ. In China, you had Confucius and Lao-Tse. In India, Buddha and the founders of Jainism, and the transformation of the Vedic traditions into Hinduism. In Greece, the rise of philosophy. For that matter, it was during the same general period that your Hebrew ancestors were hammering out their own faith. The last great world religion, Islam, arose not much more than a millenium later. A short time, really, in terms of the whole sweep of human history."
Julius was frowning. "I don't see the point."
"The point, Julius, is that this gukuy religion tells me a great deal about the general state of current gukuy society. Societies, I should say. The Earth's great religions and philosophies all arose in response to the development of civilization. Animism and tribal pantheons are inadequate to explain a varied and complex world. Intelligent beings inevitably begin to grope for universal truths. And a universal morality."
"That sounds like good news."
Indira shrugged. "Yes and no. All of the great religions created a basic code of ethics, which were actually quite similar in their principles. Variations on the Golden Rule, essentially. That represented a gigantic stride forward in human culture, no matter how often those principles were later violated in practice. But the great religions also quickly became a powerful tool for ruling classes to expand and strengthen their domination. Constantine's conversion to Christianity was accompanied by the Church's allegiance to the temporal authority of the Roman Empire, to give just one example."
"There are empires on this planet?"
She nodded. "At least one, that I know of. They call it 'Ansha.' Most of the gukuy in the valley are from there, in fact."
"Oh, great. Our next door neighbors are imperialist missionaries."
Indira hesitated, pursing her lips.
"I don't think so. I won't be certain until I learn their own language, but I'm pretty sure the gukuy in the big valley are refugees."
"Refugees? From what?"
"Religious persecution, I imagine. I don't think their religion is very old, Julius. A generation or two, at the most. The gukuy say the statue in the temple is a representation of someone named Goloku."
"Their god?"
She shook her head. "That's not the sense I get. More like a revered sage, or a prophet. The founder of their religion. But the point is that the gukuy talk about Goloku in a familiar sort of way."
Julius stared.
"Yes, Julius. If I'm right, we're not dealing with an old and well-established universal church."
She smiled. "We are there—with the apostles."
Later, Julius took her to the hut which had been formerly occupied by Hector. Once inside, she saw that the center of the hut's floor was dominated by a huge pile of clay, oddly shaped.
"What in the world is that for?"
Julius looked apologetic.
"Hey, I only got started. It's going to be a three-dimensional map of the mountain. I've already roughed out the western side."
Indira saw that the pile of clay was in the general shape of an oval. Julius pointed to one of the long sides of the pile.
"That's the southern slope," he explained. "I've just started there. That's going to be a lot of work, with all those canyons. But I've got the time, since it'll be a while before Ludmilla's expedition finishes exploring the east and north."
"It seems like a lot of work, Julius. It's very interesting, I admit, but why—"
She stopped suddenly, seeing the bleak look on her lover's face.
"It's a military map."
Julius nodded. "Yeah. Andrew suggested the idea, and Joseph immediately adopted it. Joseph asked me to start the map just before you left. He wants to have a good picture of possible invasion routes onto the mountain. And I think he's already thinking in terms of fortifications."
Indira sighed heavily. "Do you really think this is necessary, Julius?"
The biologist's voice was harsh. "Yes, I do. But it really doesn't matter what I think. Or what you think, Indira. Captain Adekunle wants it."
She stared at him. Julius shrugged. "You can't have it both ways, Indira. If the man's in charge, he's in charge."
She remembered the authority in Joseph's gesture when the gukuy were approaching, and nodded. And the fear in her heart suddenly flamed brighter.
Much to Julius' distress, Indira began making plans for an extended sojourn among the gukuy in the big valley. She would be gone for weeks, if not months, immersing herself in the gukuy culture and language.
But his unhappiness, and her plans, proved unnecessary. Four days after her return, a delegation of gukuy arrived from the big valley. Upon their arrival, they announced that they had come for an extended visit. So that they could learn from the humans.
"Except they don't call us 'humans,' " Indira explained. "Gukuy can't seem to handle hard aspirates at all, and sibilants are difficult for them. So I made it simple—we are now 'ummun.' "
Julius scowled. "Dirty, rotten linguistic imperialism, if you ask me."
Indira ignored the quip. She was frowning, deep in thought.
"What's on your mind, fair lady?"
"Huh? Oh, nothing. It's just—I'm not sure yet. They seemed to agree to the term 'ummun' readily enough, but I don't think—"
She fell silent. Julius prodded her, but the historian refused to speculate until she felt she understood the gukuy language well enough.
Two months later, she understood.
"They'll call us 'ummun,' out of politeness. But that's not really how they think of us. We're demons."
"What?"
"You heard me. Demons. Powerful and fearful creatures from beyond the known world."
"But—why demons? We haven't done anything wicked to them. Or to the owoc, for that matter."
Indira smiled, and patted his cheek.
"Poor Julius. So stunted you are by that horrid Judeo-Christian outlook."
Julius scowled. "What's my ancestry got to do with this?" he demanded.
"In the rigidly monotheistic religions—which shaped your cultural views, regardless of whether you personally are still a believer—all powerful non-divine creatures are amalgated into devils. Pure evil. But the original conception of demons doesn't necessarily carry the connotation of evil. Although evil is always there, lurking below the surface. Not evil, actually. Power. Tremendous, unbridled, fearful power—which can, of course, often manifest itself in evil ways."
"Why should they think we are powerful? Our technological level's really no higher than theirs, when you get right down to it. Our theoretical knowledge is vastly greater, of course. That's even true for the kids, even though I often think the disrespectful little bastards think most of what we teach them are fairy tales."
Indira smiled. As much as he carped on the sins of the younger generation, she knew that the biologist adored them. Much more uncritically, in fact, than she did.
"It has nothing to do with technology, Julius. At a Bronze Age stage of historical development, there's really not that much difference between the technological level of civilized societies and barbarians. The difference is social."
"So?"
"So these beings are not stupid, dear. They don't understand us, but they understand that we are very, very different. And then there's the frightening way we move."
&nb
sp; "Huh?"
She frowned. "Surely you, a biologist, can understand that fear. Other than size—and we're much taller than gukuy, even if they outweigh us—what's the other physical trait that all animals instinctively fear? Especially intelligent animals?"
Understanding came to him. "Speed."
"Yes. Especially uncanny speed, produced by unusual forms of motion. Didn't you tell me once that the reason humans have such an irrational fear of snakes is because of the way in which they strike?"
"Yeah. A coiled snake can strike like a lightning bolt, so most people think the reptiles are inhumanly fast. Truth is, a human can outrun any snake that ever lived."
"Have you ever thought of how the way humans move must look to gukuy? Like nothing they've ever seen. Almost magical, is the sense I get from them. Even with their excellent eyesight, their brains have a hard time processing our motion. To them, we—we flicker. Half-seen; half invisible. And so quickly. And we can move easily over terrain that they have to struggle through. You should have seen how their mantles were flooded with orange when they saw two of the children having a race up the mountainside."
"Orange? I've never seen that color on the owoc."
"No, neither have I. I'm certain that it's the color of astonishment. Owoc are never astonished. Puzzled, often. But then their mantles turn ochre with indecision and uncertainty. To be astonished—amazed—requires more of a rational sense of what is normal in the world. To the owoc the world simply is what it is. They may not understand it—they often don't—but they accept it."
Julius grunted. "True. They really aren't all that bright."
Indira's stare was stony.
"That's one way to put it. But there's another way to look at it, you know. The capacity to be amazed presupposes that you believe in your ability to understand the world. When something then happens which doesn't fit your conception of reality, you are astonished and amazed."
"So?"
"So you see that as a sign of intelligence. To me, it's also a sign of arrogance."