A Circus of Hells

Chapter XVI

When first they woke, the People had no names. He who was Rrinn ashore was an animal at the bottom of the sea.

Its changes were what roused him. Water pressure dropped with the level; lower temperatures meant a higher equilibrium concentration of dissolved oxygen, which affected the fairly shallow depths at which the People estivated; current shifted, altering the local content of minerals raised from the ocean bed. Rrinn was aware of none of this. He knew only, without knowing that he knew, that the Little Death was past and he had come again to the Little Birth…though he would not be able to grasp these ideas for a while.

During a measureless time he lay in the ooze which lightly covered his submerged plateau. Alertness came by degrees, and hunger. He stirred. His gill flaps quivered, the sphincters behind them pumping for an ever more demanding bloodstream. When his strength was enough, he caught the sea with hands, webbed feet, and tail. He surged into motion.

Other long forms flitted around him. He sensed them primarily by the turbulence and taste they gave to the water. No sunlight penetrated here. Nevertheless vision picked them out as blurs of blackness. Illumination came from the dimly blue-glowing colonies of aoao (as it was called when the People had language) planted at the sides of the cage; it lured those creatures which dwelt always in the sea, and helped Wirrda’s find their way to freedom.

Different packs had different means of guarding themselves during the Little Death, such as boulders rolled across crevices. Zennevirr’s had even trained a clutch of finsnakes to stand sentry. Wirrda’s slumbered in a cage—woven mesh between timbers—that nothing dangerous could enter. It had originally been built, and was annually repaired, in the spring when the People returned, still owning a limited ability to breathe air. That gave them energy to dive and do hard work below, living off the redeveloping gills an hour or two at a stretch. (Of course, not everyone labored. The majority chased down food for all.) After their lungs went completely inactive, they became torpid—besides, the sun burned so cruelly by then, the air was like dry fire—and they were glad to rest in a cool dark.

Now Rrinn’s forebrain continued largely dormant, to preserve cells that otherwise would get insufficient oxygen. Instinct, reflex, and training steered him. He found one of the gates and undid it. Leaving it open, he swam forth and joined his fellows. They were browsing among the aoao, expropriating what undigested catch lay in those tentacles.

The supply was soon exhausted, and Wirrda’s left in a widespread formation numbering about 200 individuals. Clues of current and flavor, perhaps subtler hints, guided them in a landward direction. Had it been clear day they would not have surfaced immediately; eyes must become reaccustomed by stages to the dazzle. But a thick sleet made broaching safe. That was fortunate, albeit common at this season. In their aquatic phase, the People fared best among the waves.

They found a school of—not exactly fish—and cooperated in a battue. Again and again Rrinn leaped, dived, drove himself by threshing tail and pistoning legs until he clapped hands on a scaly body and brought it to his fangs. He persisted after he was full, giving the extra catch to whatever infants he met. They had been born with teeth, last midwinter, able to eat any flesh their parents shredded for them; but years remained before they got the growth to join in a chase.

In fact, none of the People were ideally fitted for ocean life. Their remote ancestors, epochs ago, had occupied the continental shelf and were thus forced to contend with both floods and drought. The dual aerating system developed in response, as did the adaptation of departing the land to escape summer’s heat. But being evolved more for walking than swimming—since two-thirds of their lives were spent ashore—they were only moderately efficient sea carnivores and “found” it was best to retire into estivation.

Rrinn had had that theory expounded to him by a Merseian paleontologist. He would remember it when his brain came entirely awake. At present he simply felt a wordless longing for the shallows. He associated them with food, frolic, and—and—

Snowing went on through days and nights. Wirrda’s swam toward the mainland, irregularly, since they must hunt, but doggedly. Oftener and oftener they surfaced. Water felt increasingly less good in the gills, air increasingly less parching. After a while Rrinn actively noticed the sensuous fluidity along his fur, the roar and surge of great wrinkled foam-streaked gray waves, skirling winds and blown salt spindrift.

Snowing ended. Wirrda’s broached to a night of hyaline clarity, where the very ocean was subdued. Overhead glittered uncountable stars. Rrinn floated on his back and gazed upward. The names of the brightest came to him. So did his own. He recalled that if he had lately passed a twin-peaked island, which he had, then he ought to swim in a direction that kept Ssarro Who Mounts Endless Guard over his right shoulder. Thus he would approach the feeding grounds with more precision than the currents granted. He headed himself accordingly, the rest followed, and he knew afresh that he was their leader.

Dawn broke lambent, but the People were no longer troubled by glare. They pressed forward eagerly in Rrinn’s wake. By evening they saw the traces of land, a slight haze on the horizon, floating weeds and bits of wood, a wealth of life. That night they harried and were gluttonous among a million tiny phosphorescent bodies; radiance dripped from their jaws and swirled on every wave. Next morning they heard surf.

Rrinn identified this reef, that riptide, and swam toward the ness where Wirrda’s always went ashore. At midaftemoon the pack reached it.

North and south, eventually to cover half the globe, raged blizzards. Such water as fell on land, solid, did not return to the ocean; squeezed beneath the stupendous weight of later falls, it became glacier. Around the poles, the seas themselves were freezing, more territory for snow to accumulate on. In temperate climes their level dropped day by day, and the continental shelves reappeared in open air.

Rrinn would know this later. For the moment, he rejoiced to tread on ground again. Breakers roared, tumbled, and streamed among the low rocks; here and there churned ice floes. Swimming was not too dangerous, though. Winter tides were weak. And ahead, the shelf climbed, rugged and many-colored under a sparkling sky.

Snow dappled its flanks, ice glistened where pools had been. The air was a riot of odors, salt, iodine, clean decomposition and fresh growth, and was crisp and windy and cool, cool.

Day after day the pack fattened itself, until blubber sleeked out the bulges of ribs and muscles. The receding waters had left a rich stratum of dead plants and animals. In it sprouted last year’s saprophyte seeds, salt and alcohol in their tissues to prevent freezing, and covered the rocks with ocherous and purple patches. Marine animals swarmed between; flying creatures shrieked and whirled above by the hundred thousand; big game wandered down from the interior to feed. Rrinn’s males chipped hand axes to supplement their fangs; females prepared lariats of gut and sinew; beasts were caught and torn asunder.

Yet Wirrda’s were ceasing to be only hunters. They crooned snatches of song, they trod bits of dance, they spoke haltingly. Many an individual would sit alone, hours on end, staring at sunset and stars while memory drifted up from the depths. And one day Rrinn, making his way through a whiteout, met a female who had kept close to him. They stopped in the wind-shrill blankness, the sea clashing at their feet, and looked eye into eye. She was sinuous and splendid. He exclaimed in delight, “But you are Cuwarra.”

“And you are Rrinn,” she cried. Male and wife, they came to each other’s arms.

While ovulation was seasonal among the People, the erotic urge persisted throughout winter. Hence the young had fathers who helped care for them during their initial months of existence. That relationship was broken by the Little Death—older cubs were raised in casual communal fashion—but most couples stayed mated for life.

Working inland, Wirrda’s encountered Brrao’s and Hrrouf’s. They did every year. The ferocious territoriality which the People had for their homes ashore did not extend to the shelf; packs simply made landfall at points convenient to their ultimate destinations. These three mingled cheerfully. Games were played, stories told, ceremonies put on, marriages arranged, joint hunts carried out. Meanwhile brains came wholly active, lungs reached full development, gills dried and stopped functioning.

Likewise did the shelflands. Theirs was a brief florescence, an aftermath of summer’s furious fertility. Plants died off, animals moved away, pickings got lean. Rrinn thought about Wirrda’s, high in the foothills beyond the tundra, where hot springs boiled and one river did not freeze. He mounted a rock and roared. Other males of his pack passed it on, and before long everyone was assembled beneath him. He said: “We will go home now.”

Various youths and maidens complained, their courtships among Brrao’s or Hrrouf’s being unfinished. A few hasty weddings were celebrated and numerous dates were made. (In the ringing cold of midwinter, the People traveled widely, by foot, sled, ski and iceboat. Though hunting grounds were defended to the death, peaceful guests were welcomed. Certain packs got together at set times for trade fairs.) On the first calm day after his announcement, Rrinn led the exodus.

He did not start north at once. With full mentality regained, Wirrda’s could use proper tools and weapons. The best were stored at Wirrda’s—among the People, no real distinction existed among place names, possessives, and eponyms—but some had been left last spring at the accustomed site to aid this trek.

Rrinn’s line of march brought his group onto the permanent littoral. It was a barren stretch of drifts. His Merseian acquaintances had shown him moving pictures of it during hot weather: flooded in spring, pullulating swamp in earth summer, later baked dry and seamed with cracks. Now that the shelf was exhausted, large flesheaters were no longer crossing these white sastrugi to see what they could scoop out of the water. Rrinn pushed his folk unmercifully.

They did not mind the cold. Indeed, to them the land still was warmer than they preferred. Fur and blubber insulated them, the latter additionally a biological reserve. Theirs was a high homeothermic metabolism, with corresponding energy demands. The People needed a large intake of food. Rrinn took them over the wastelands because it would be slower and more exhausting to climb among the ice masses that choked Barrier Bay. Supplies could not be left closer to the shelf or the pack, witless on emergence, might ruin everything.

After three days’ hard travel, a shimmer in the air ahead identified those piled bergs. Rrinn consulted Cuwarra. Females were supposed to be inferior, but he had learned to rely on her sense of direction. She pointed him with such accuracy that next morning, when he topped a hill, he looked straight across to his goal.

The building stood on another height, constructed of stone, a low shape whose sod roof bore a cap of white. Beyond it, in jagged shapes and fantastic rainbows, reached the bay. Northward wound the Golden River, frozen and snowed on and frozen again until it was no more than a blue-shadowed valley among the bluffs. The air was diamond-clear beneath azure heaven.

“Go!” shouted Rrinn exuberantly. Not just equipment, but smoked meat lay ahead. He cast himself on his belly and tobogganed downslope. The pack whooped after. At the bottom they picked themselves up and ran. The snow crunched, without giving, under their feet.

But when they neared the building, its door opened. Rrinn stopped. Hissing dismay, he waved his followers back. The fur stood straight on him. An animal—

No, a Merseian. What was a Merseian doing in the cache house? They’d been shown around, it had been explained to them that the stuff kept there must never be disturbed, they’d agreed and—

Not a Merseian! Too erect. No tail. Face yellowish-brown where it was not covered with hair—

Snarling in the rage of territory violation, Rrinn gathered himself and plunged forward at the head of his warriors.

After dark the sky grew majestic with stars. But it was as if their light froze on the way down and shattered on the dimly seen ice of Talwin. A vast silence overlay the world; sound itself appeared to have died of cold. To Flandry, the breath in his nostrils felt liquid.

And this was the threshold of winter!

The Ruadrath were gathered before him in a semicircle ten or twelve deep. He saw them as a shadowy mass, occasionally a glitter when eyes caught stray luminance from the doorway where he stood. Rrinn, who confronted him directly, was clearer in his view.

Flandry was not too uncomfortable. The dryness of the air made its chill actually less hard to take than the higher temperatures of foggy autumn. From the bus he had lifted ample clothing, among divers other items, and bundled it around himself. Given a glower, the structure where he had taken refuge was cozy. Warmth radiated over his back.

(However, the glower’s energy cells had gotten low in the three weeks that he waited. Likewise had his food. Not daring to tamper with the natives’ stockpile, he had gone hunting—lots of guns and ammo in the bus—but, ignorant of local game, hadn’t bagged much. And what he did get required supplementation from a dwindling stock of capsules. Nor could he find firewood. If you don’t convince this gentlebeing, he told himself, you’re dead.

Rrinn said into a vocalizer from the cache house: “How foresaw you, new skyswimmer, that any among us would know Eriau?” The transponder turned his purring, trilling vocables into Merseian noises; but since he had never quite mastered a grammar and syntax based on a worldview unlike his own, the sentences emerged peculiar.

Flandry was used to that kind of situation. “Before leaving the Merseian base,” he answered, “I studied what they had learned about these parts. They had plenty of material on you Ruadrath, among them you of Wirrda’s. Mention was made of your depot and a map showed it. I knew you would arrive in due course.” I knew besides that it was unlikely the gatortails would check here for me, this close to their camp. “Now you have been in contact with them since first they came—more than the Domrath, both because you are awake more and because they think more highly of you. Your interest in their works was often…depicted.” (He had recalled that the winter folk used no alphabet, just mnemonic drawings and carvings.) “It was reasonable that a few would have learned Eriau, in order to discourse of matters which cannot be treated in any language of the Ruadrath. And in fact it was mentioned that this was true.”

“S-s-s-s.” Rrinn stroked his jaw. Fangs gleamed under stars and Milky Way. His breath did not smoke like a human’s or Merseian’s; to conserve interior heat, his respiratory system was protected by oils, not moisture, and water left him by excretion only. He shifted the harpoon he had taken from the weapon racks inside. Sheathed on the belt he had reacquired was a Merseian war knife. “Remains for you to tell us why you are here alone and in defiance of the word we made with the skyswimmers,” he said.

Flandry considered him. Rrinn was a handsome creature. He wasn’t tall, about 150 centimeters, say 65 kilos, but otter-supple. Otterlike too were the shape of body, the mahogany fur, the short arms. The head was more suggestive of a sea lion’s, muzzle pointed, whiskered, and sharp-toothed, ears small and closeable, brain case bulging backward from a low forehead. The eyes were big and golden, with nicitating membranes, and there was no nose; breath went under the same opercula that protected the gills.

No Terran analogy ever holds very true. Those arms terminated in four-digited hands whose nails resembled claws. The stance was akin to Merseian, forward-leaning, counterbalanced by the long strong tail. The legs were similarly long and muscular, their wide-webbed feet serving as fins for swimming, snowshoes for walking. Speech was melodious but nothing that a man could reproduce without a vocalizer.

And the consciousness behind those eyes—Flandry picked his response with care.

“I knew you would be angered at my invading your cache house,” he said. “I counted on your common sense to spare me when I made no resistance.” Well, I did have a blaster for backup. “And you have seen that I harmed or took nothing. On the contrary, I make you gifts.” Generously supplied by the airbus. “You understand I belong to a different race from the Merseians, even as you and the Domrath differ. Therefore, should I be bound by their word? No, let us instead seek a new word between Wirrda’s and mine.”

He pointed at the zenith. Rrinn’s gaze followed. Flandry wondered if he was giving himself false reassurance in believing he saw on the Ruad that awe which any thoughtful sophont feels who lets his soul fall upward among the stars. I’d better be right about him.

“You have not been told the full tale, you of Wirrda’s,” he said into the night and their watchfulness. “I bring you tidings of menace.”