Courtship Rite

A DEDICATION Some Words for Bill Kingsley

THOSE OF us who never left the home planet Earth are endlessly curious about those who did. What happened to them and why? But a student of galactic history suffers an embarrassment of silver in his black ore. There are too many clusters, too many stars, too many suns, too many worlds, too many outposts, too many peoples who drift in their ship abodes independent of planet or sun, too many conflicts and dynasties and discoveries.

Some historians try to master this dilemma by removing themselves to such a distance that the silver worlds of man’s galactic heritage merge into the Milky Way of a single fine-grained photograph, no world distinguishable from the next in the general pattern. But then, how is that different from standing in the dark desert night of Earth to gaze at the awesome heavenly smear of the Milky Way in unsatisfied wonder and curiosity?

It was people who went out there. What do we see when we have a “telescope” so powerful that the individual grains become worlds and men and women and conflicts? What is the micro-texture below the general rules of the rise of dynasty and the flow of trade and the vorticular forces of change? And so I have become more of a story-teller than a historian. But it is not easy to make sense of gossip that flows slower along the starlanes than tales of China moved into Europe on the old sailing vessels.

I’ve long had fascinating files of information on the worlds of the obscure Finger, that wisp of stars pointing across the Noir Gulf toward Sol from so far away in the Sagittarian direction that few Earthmen have ever heard the name. From time to time I’ve tried to put the pieces together in various ways, but who needs the noise of facts? It is a story I’ve always wanted.

The Finger Pointing Solward is a trivial peninsula reaching out from the edge of the Sagittarian Arm toward our own Orion Arm, a logical trade route across the great emptiness between Arms. At the tip of the Finger shines Akira. Where did the Akirani come from? How did their empire creep out from the Akiran System to Butsudo and then to red Rokakubutsu and in time to distant Iwa Katsura? Beyond even Iwa Katsura lies Enclad. Who stood on the icefields of Enclad and decided to make it a world? Why are orphans loved by the black men of nearby Talatus? And who are the Getans who appear from nowhere and disappear again and never trust the men they meet?

Geta of Getasun, the world of this book, is not really one of the Finger’s Worlds. It lies somewhere Centerward from the Finger in the Remeden Drift. Those who know of such things, know that the Getans, today, are no longer human though they are flesh and blood and, like the chimpanzee, share 98% of our genes. That is not so strange in a galaxy where men have gone their own biological ways, but the Getans are extreme in their differences. They keep recurring in the history of the Finger Pointing Solward and information about them is scarce. The mystery around them made me curious.

Why did they choose their peculiar path? What were they like long ago when they were still human? For years I poked for an answer. The pieces were tortuous to come by. I got them. I remember trying to fit it all into a story. The best that came out was a dry documentary.

Artists go into rages at times like that. I stormed into the home of my friend Bill Kingsley and threw down the manuscript. “What’s wrong with it!” When Bill isn’t playing handball with our heads, he makes a lot of sense. I was sulking. Well, facts are facts but it is how they relate that is important When Bill had finished directing my mind, some kind of miracle had happened inside. I wasn’t on the Earth with my notes and theories. I was on Geta at a pivotal time in its past.

I had tough leggings around my feet to protect me from the poison feelers, Getasun was huge and orange and harsh, the desert air sucked water from my skin, a stationary moon stood near the horizon, half lit, half dark, and the city of Kaiel-hontokae was laid out along the mountain foothills. An insect was trying to colonize my ear.

You’ve just read the story I lived. There will be others. Thanks Bill!

Donald Kingsbury

The Earth; Galactic Standard Kiloday 980