Part 8 (1/2)

Dawn Folk and Hlutr sing together now, sing in sound and in the soundless waves of the Inner Voice, sing triumph and the joy of life's endless cycles renewed. There is a truth, which most races learn but which Hlutr and Dawn People know instinctively from the first moment of existence, and this truth is that all life is one. From one end of the Galactic Spiral to the other, from the slow-living crystalline Talebba off in deep s.p.a.ce to the fleeting insects of green Tcherlatha to the majesty of the Hlutr themselves and beyond, every creature that lives is a part of all others. This is what Khria must learn, if he is to wield his power wisely.

In that sun-warmed glade beneath Sebya's eternal blue sky, my dream comes to a sudden and shocking end. For while the White Rocks tribe stands enraptured, Khria points, and his followers tear one of the new seedlings out of the nouris.h.i.+ng ground. The newborn's cry of anguish rocks the forest, and every creature within it stiffens and pauses as if an enemy has just appeared.

In that terrible moment, my song is attuned to Khria's, and I feel the emotions that beat in his mind, the pa.s.sions that flow through his animal glands. And what I find sickens me. Khria is happy- he actually enjoys what he has done, he drinks the pain of the Little One as a thirsty flower drinks the Spring rain.

Quick action is not the Hlutr way- we prefer to deal with problems over generations, not seconds. I least of all, who have lived so slowly and so long, am accustomed to acting fast. So Khria and his fellows are in their skys.h.i.+p and above the treetops before I can respond.

Khria has betrayed me. More...I have been a fool. To have trusted a Human, especially when I could not read his hidden emotions! Now the enormity of my deed comes upon me with the shock of sudden winter.

Questions fill my mind, but there is no time for them. Why, Khria, have you done this? What possesses you, to repudiate a solemn agreement made to a Hlutr Elder? Answers must needs come later, for now I must act.

My view of the glade is shadowy and indistinct now, for my brothers and sisters who carry that image to me are reeling with consternation. Close the curtain, I tell them, And send the Humans to me. I will know from Khria himself why he has done this.

One Hlutr voice sounds clear in the confusion, and others follow it: the curtain is built up, shutting out Humans from the Forest of the Dawn and, more important, closing in those who are already there. Khria's men cannot stand against the united Hlutr will.

Too late, I find that Khria has antic.i.p.ated me. A bright bolt of red lashes from his skys.h.i.+p into the very body of a mature Hlut on the outskirts of the glade- that one's pain deafens all nearby, and brings the song of the curtain to an abrupt halt.

The glade vanishes from my sight in a blur of screams and flame, and Khria...Khria has escaped.

It is over.

Khria thinks to hide from me in his laboratory deep beneath the Human settlement; Khria is a fool. He believes that he can forswear himself before the Hlutr and pay no penalty, that he can scamper to his burrow like a tiny animal and escape the minds of his masters.

Know truly, Little Ones, what I have said: not an insect falls in the Forest of the Dawn, that the Hlutr do not know. My roots drive deep, deeper than even Khria can comprehend, and now I strain forward, pus.h.i.+ng them on through bedrock while my leaves drink deep of the golden sun above.

I must live faster than I have ever lived before, faster than the Humans live, faster than the dawnflies live, faster than ever a Hlut on Sebya has lived. Rock splinters like rotted wood before the swift advance of my roots, my new-formed limbs; in seventy-times-seventy places I burst forth into the tunnels of the Human settlement.

All this motion is not without price. I, who have felt the continents s.h.i.+ft beneath me, will burn out most of my remaining span before the sun sets this evening. I will never live to see the Dawn People fulfill my hopes and my dreams for them. It was a mistake to trust Khria, and a mistake whose consequences I must bear.

I find Khria in a secluded apartment next to a laboratory where the Dawn Person seedling is being dismembered. Khria intently studies glowing vision screens before him, oblivious to the gentle entrance of my leaves and soft, young branches.

It is an effort for me to vibrate these new leaves to form Human speech. ”Why, Darineb Khria, have you done this?”

Now Khria sees me, and his metal body rises as his cameras track around the room. He knows that he is too late- I have thrust shoots forth through every wall, and one of my firm roots holds his door shut against motors which strain to open it.

”I needed to examine the transition phase,” Khria says. His mind is cool. ”You wouldn't have given me permission ”

”I told you to wait. Dawn People die in the transition; soon enough one such would have been yours to examine.”

”Years, decades maybe.”

”You promise immortality, and yet cannot wait a few short years?” Inside me there is regret. For a dream that will never be- for I truly believe that Khria could have given the Hlutr race immortality, and could have brought the Dawn People to their heritage far in advance of Hlutr plans.

”Such a small sacrifice to make,” he says, ”A couple seedlings here and there, some of the adults...it's not too late, you know.”

”It is far too late, Darineb Khria.”

”What makes you care so much about these creatures? You've never cared that much for Humans, or any of the other races you've dealt with. What makes these Dawn People of Sebya so special?”

I knew how to answer him now, an answer that in my foolishness I had not known before this day. Even so old as me, the Hlutr can learn. ”The Dawn People are our immortality...not any genetic alterations that you might make. Individual Hlutr will die, and in the distant future our whole species will be gone but the Dawn People will be there, so that the best of the Hlutr will live forever.”

All the time we speak, I have been extending myself further into Khria's apartment, tightening my hold on rock and soil, forming hard Hlutr wood in minutes that otherwise would take generations to lay down.

Only now, as he sees my substance closing about him like a coc.o.o.n, does Khria begin to fear. And still his mind is dominated by ego, by the dreadful arrogance that made him tempt a Hlut...and almost succeed. ”How long do you think you can hold me? Rescue teams will blast me out. My reactor will keep me alive for a century or more.”

This expense of energy has been frightening and has left me with a vastly diminished span...but I will live far longer than Darineb Khria. My wood magnifies the sound as I answer him, ”Rescue teams will not reach you. Once this place is wrecked, no Human will want to come here for seventy times seventy generations and beyond. My brethren will see to that. The Humans in the south will leave the Forest alone, else they will be persuaded to leave this world.”

”What do you mean, when this place is wrecked? You can't -”

Only now does he realize the magnitude of what he has done, and Khria stops as his fear flashes outward to the stars.

I am tired, and the sun is creeping toward horizon. It is time to end this thing. ”I wish it could have been different, Khria. Now do we both pay for our sins.”

I strain, like a Dawn Person struggling to tear himself from the ground- and all around me, the mountain shudders and tumbles, the Human settlement shatters and falls in upon itself...and Khria is buried under more stone and steel than a thousand Human rescue parties could lift.

Three seasons fly by as I stand contemplating this thing I have done. I do not regret killing Khria, for he was a thing that should have been killed far sooner. What I did, I did to save the Dawn People- and that is my chiefest reason for being. However, I do regret that I have thrown away so much: My own chance for a personal immortality, buried now in the chambers of Khria's mind; but also my part in the Hlutr racial immortality. For even as I feel the heaviness of snow upon my limbs and the rush of wind through my branches, I know that I will never again contribute to the grand evolution of the Little Ones I have endangered. It is a sad and terrible thing, to cast away the eternal future.

I spend more seasons in contemplation, seeking solace in the infinity of voices, Hlutr and otherwise, that make up the Universal Song. And at last, the merest whisper comes to me in that song, and I find myself touched by the attention of the Eldest of all.

Suffer no more, child. We have need of you.

Eldest, I can be of no more use here. Long before the Dawn People near their goal, my span will be ended.

We need your attention here, now. Do you imagine that the Dawn People are our only attempt for a successor race, or that Sebya is the sole source of the Hlutr future? I need your wisdom and experience in the councils of the Elders from all worlds.

Eldest, I fear that I will not live long enough to do you good. A few sevens of centuries as the Humans count time....

Nonsense. Live as quickly as you are accustomed to, and your span will be short. Allow me to teach you to live more slowly, and you can counsel me for a lifetime yet.

The Eldest pauses, a pause that may be a Human generation long. Of course, you must bid farewell to Sebya. Your body may remain there, but living far too slowly to be conscious of the place.

I look about, surprised that the snow has melted and a fresh carpet of green covers the tumbled remains of the mountain. Birdcalls are shrill in the quiet afternoon, and I can sense a tribe of Dawn People hunting a few Hlutr-lengths away. Overhead, the sun is bright in a cloudless sky.

Immortality, yet again? To leave Sebya behind, and take my place in the councils of the Eldest of us all, to shape Hlutr destiny in upcoming ages? Or to stay, allow my consciousness to submerge into the flow of life around me, and eventually give my substance and memories to the community of life which I have so profoundly touched?

I do not hesitate; and when again my mind touches the Eldest's, I know She is ready for my decision. I will stay, Eldest, I say. And here, I will live forever.

INTERLUDE 3.

Three days after his fourteenth birthday, Kev went aloft in a small stars.h.i.+p with his school and his Father Alekos. By the time they returned to Amny s.p.a.ceport five hours later, the school was satisfied of Kev's piloting proficiency, and issued him a license to fly anywhere in the Scattered Worlds.

”This doesn't mean that you can go joy-hopping all over creation,” said Father Alekos. ”Before you fly anywhere I want you to let one the family know where you're going. And that doesn't mean beaming a message to the house computers from the outskirts of the system.”

”Yes, sir.” Alekos was Kev's favorite father, and the boy felt honored that the man had taken time to make this flight with him. Alekos Mathis was a doctor, one of the best- computers called him when they had trouble with a diagnosis, and patients flew to Amny from all over the Galaxy just so he could see them.