The Ship Errant

Chapter Fourteen

"Four heat traces inside that one," Carialle said, as Keff obligingly swept his sensors toward the nearest house on the edge of town.

The habitations of the griffins were a peculiar hodgepodge of modern and primitive architecture strewn throughout the ridges of the high mountain reaches. No one seemed to like to live in the valleys. All of the buildings were of stone; unsurprising in a landscape with few trees. Each house had been constructed with considerable physical labor, using handhewn blocks, and yet, on top of this building and the ones visible nearby were delicate metal antennae, the communications transmitters Carialle had detected from space. The houses were roofed and decorated with the local clay, colored blue and green with trace minerals Carialle identified as copper extractives.

"One thing you can say about them, they do landscape nicely," Carialle commented, focusing on various details in the large yard. "Although the preponderance of rock gardens would get old fairly quickly."

"Pee-yew!" Keff said, as the globe frogs floated him over a pit. It was carefully bermed to prevent its strong stench from wafting toward the small blue house, so the only place for the stink to go was straight up, toward him. He gestured with frantic hands.

"Put me down! Now!" He dipped dangerously towards the cesspit, and waved for attention. "No, not in here, over there." He rose through the air once more. Following his signals, the Cridi set him down in the long grass several meters away from the humped construction. Once on the ground, he could see that it was fitted with wide stone steps leading to the lip, and surrounded by handsome gardens that no doubt benefited from the natural fertilizer.

"I see you've found 'the necessary,'" Carialle commented drily.

"You can laugh," Keff said crossly, triggering the stud that controlled air recirculation. "You didn't smell it. It was so bad that it passed the filters in my suit." Grateful to be back on his own feet, he patted the nearest Cridi's globe. Small Spot glanced up at him with large, scared eyes.

"These beasts are not secretly making an attack?" he asked.

"I don't think so," Keff replied. "It does not appear as if we have much to fear from them. They're afraid of you."

"Us? They are so many, and we are so few, and yet they do not attack?"

"It would seem not," Keff said. He squeezed his eyes halfway closed to trigger magnification on the house. "Those wires are very new," Keff said. "The contacts have yet to oxidize in spite of the chlorinated atmosphere."

"I am finding it very difficult to believe they continue to live in a semi-primitive state like this after having developed space travel," Carialle said.

"Focused application of technology?" Keff wondered out loud. "Perhaps they have a cultural prohibition against wholesale changes in the environment."

"Yes, but Keff, even sustainable technology could take care of that midden heap in a more aesthetic and less odiferous fashion. Side by side with electric light and telecommunications is that complicated system of water-wheels for ventilation."

"Yes," Big Eyes said. "Why do they not use electricity to run water mills and to ventilate? Much more efficient."

"Tradition?" Keff asked, but he wasn't convinced either.

"It's as if all this doesn't belong, as if it has been imposed on the landscape," Carialle said. "Looking at it with an artist's eye, it doesn't make sense. Some scientific advances are used for one purpose, but all other uses are ignored.

Big Eyes, accustomed to luxuries available at the flick of a finger, stared around her at the dry landscape with puzzled eyes. "So barren," she said. "Bleak, primitive."

Tall Eyebrow suddenly looked very sad. "Very much like home on Sky Clear," he gestured. Big Eyes caught the expression on his face, and attempted to apologize.

"It is only that I am not used to it," she said hastily, both in voice and sign. "I do not mean such things cannot be considered attractive."

"I'm going to go speak to the beings in the house," Keff signed, distracting them both from a potentially embarrassing exchange. "Stay close, but don't come out until I signal for you."

With the Cridi in their globes staying low in the tall, crisp grass, Keff circled out of the yard and made his way to the front. A wide but low door, elaborately molded bronze to match the shutters of the wide windows, lay in the exact center of the side of the house, facing a lane.

"Not much in the way of roadbuilders," Carialle said. "But would you be, if you could fly everywhere?"

"Not I," Keff said. He raised his hand to knock, then noticed a cluster of bells hanging just under the eaves. "That's right. They haven't much in the way of knuckles, have they?" He jangled the bells with his fingertips. In a few moments, the door swung wide. A noseless lion face appeared at his chest level.

"Freihur?" the griffin asked. Its strange eyes darkened as its visitor registered on its consciousness, and it sat back on its haunches. "Za, humancaldifaro!"

"Yes, I'm human. My name is Keff. How do you do? Do you speak Standard?" Keff asked, politely, airing the griffin language he'd elicited from Carialle's telephone tap.

"I… yes! Welcome," the griffin said in Standard, in seeming befuddlement. It passed wing-hands over its golden fur, grooming it back into place. "Enter, yaro."

Keff followed his host into the low house. The interior was arranged rather like a nest. All the furniture was made for sinking into or settling on. The big, fluffy pillows looked comfortable. The heavy gravity was wearing on his muscles in spite of the assistance of Core power. Keff would have enjoyed flopping down on the cushion with the silky covering that lay under a sunny window amid potted plants. The windows were unglazed, a blessing in the heat, but were all fitted with screens of a microfine weave to keep out the blowing dust.

Keff was about to ask his host to take him to its leader when he noticed a large square device with a screen on top of it, and a sling shoved hastily to one side. On the screen, another Griffin face was peering out. He'd probably interrupted an important gossip session, then realized that his host was looking at him with fearful anticipation.

"Vaniah? Vaniah, soheoslayim, commeadyoslayim Thelerieya," the caller on the screen said. Thelerie the host didn't know which way to go. At last, it plunged away from Keff and punched a button on the box below the other's image. The screen went black.

"Word spreads," Carialle said. "Better to take the bullfrog by the horns."

"You're quite right," Keff said, and whispered into his helmet. By the time his host turned around, the four Cridi were clustered around his feet on the stone floor. The Thelerie backpedaled, protecting its face with folded wings. Its claws scrabbled, and it felt for a piece of furniture to sink down into.

"It's true, you see," Keff said, standing in the doorway so the griffin couldn't flee. "These are my friends. They are harmless and friendly, and wish to come with me to meet your government. Can you help us?"

"They are not killers?" the griffin asked. Its pupils were spread out across its eyes. "I have children…" It glanced nervously toward the corridor. Keff guessed the young ones were beyond one of the two closed doors he could see.

"No," he hurried to assure the Thelerie. "They are civilized beings, who only wish to speak."

"Greetings," Tall Eyebrow said, rolling up in his globe. The griffin's ears swiveled forward.

"I did not know they can speak."

"They can and do," Keff said.

"This is like… toys," the Thelerie said, tipping a wary wing-hand toward the globes.

"Means of conveyance," Keff said. "Your world is too dry for them. They are accustomed to a very wet climate. They are at a disadvantage here."

"Ah." The griffin paused to consider. Its eyes lost some of the expression of terror.

"You can almost hear the wheels turn in its head," Carialle said. "'The monsters are vulnerable.'"

"You will be assisting in the cause of global peace," Keff said, encouragingly, hoping to make the wheels turn in the right direction. "And think of the gossip you'll be able to pass on to your friends."

The Griffin's upper lip split widely, and its pupils narrowed. "I am not forgetting that," it said, with good humor. "What do you want of me?"

"Will you take me to your leader?" Keff asked.

"I thought that griffin would break the sound barrier flying home," Carialle said, as Keff stood on the balcony looking after it.

"And why not?" Keff asked, making sure he had a good grip on the rail while he brushed fine yellow silt from his suit. The broad, stone building about four levels high was the tallest building in the city. This flat parapet appeared to be the landing pad for Thelerie visiting the structure, avoiding the dusty plain below. Keff felt at a disadvantage as the only being on the planet, including the Cridi visitors, who had no means of independent aerial propulsion. "He's got the exclusive story of the century, but he couldn't go and tell it until he got us here. Or was it a she?"

"But where is here?" Tall Eyebrow wanted to know. Keff and the Cridi were clustered out of sight of anyone looking up.

"Central government," Keff said, rapping with his knuckles on the light, metal window frame. "Or so our guide said. We ought to be uninterrupted at least until he gets back to his screen. That should be enough time to make our presence known. Ah," he said as the gauze-screened doors opened onto a broad room. Two large griffins in leather harness met his eyes with openmouthed astonishment. "Excuse me. I would like to speak to the being in charge." He threw a glance over his shoulder, but the Cridi globes had hovered up out of sight. "Wait for my signal," he said, with his lips close together.

"We waiting," said a soft voice in his helmet receiver.

"So am I," Carialle said.

Keff marched behind his escort down a wide corridor to a chamber, like a huge eyrie. The outward-slanting walls and square pillars were of a mahogany-colored stone, carved sumptuously in relief, and polished to a gleam. Tiny lamps glimmered in sconces around the walls. Keff saw that they were flames, but of intense brightness for their small size. A dozen Thelerie with white tufts in their golden fur conversed respectfully with one whose coat was nearly entirely white. All of them lounged on embroidered pads before individual carved tables. Near the walls, a dozen or more young and muscular-looking Thelerie sat, holding sharpened bronze weapons that resembled a cross between short jai-alai sticks and back-scratchers. In the corner was a griffin playing on a stringed instrument like a huge dulcimer. The music stopped when the musician spotted Keff. The brawn bowed deeply, and addressed himself to the eldest Thelerie.

"Greetings. I am Keff. My partner, Carialle, and I come in friendship, as a representative of the Central Worlds, to extend the compliments of our government, and to voice grievances brought by some of our member worlds."

"Then you must come in," the elder said, rising from his cushion, and extending his wing-hands toward Keff in a companionable gesture. "You are welcome. I am Noonday, Sayas of Thelerie. These are the Ro-sayo, the assembly of the wise."

Murmurs broke out in the chamber as Keff strode between the guards to the center of the room. He bowed to each of the councillors, centering their faces for his chest camera and Carialle.

"Slayim," he heard repeated over and over again. "Slayim."

"Word has already spread here of our arrival," Carialle said. "Slayim, slayim, slayim."

"Slime," Keff said under his breath, suddenly enlightened. "That's what they've been calling the Cridi."

"For their wet skins," Carialle said. "An uncomplimentary but not unreasonable pejorative. But it's a Standard word."

"It won't remain a mystery long, I hope. May I address this assembly?" Keff asked Noonday. The leader, after looking around at the others and meeting their eyes, nodded his great head.

"Not all speak your tongue, but I shall translate for those of us who do not understand."

"Thank you," Keff said, adjusting IT to pick up the leader's voice. "But first, I must introduce you to your nearest neighbors among the stars."

He stepped past Noonday's cushion and up to the great casement behind him. With a flourish, he threw open the windows, and the four Cridi globes sailed up and in on a wave of wind and dust.

"Slime!"

Brandishing their back-scratchers, the guards at once dove for the four small globes, but they rebounded against another unseen wall of force. They fought and tore at obdurate nothingness with hysterical fury on their big, flat faces.

Gawking, the elderly Ro-sayo leaped off their cushions. They tried to break for the door, the other windows, even out past Keff, who flattened himself against a pillar out of the way. The Thelerie all but rebounded off invisible barriers put there by Cridi Core power, and rushed to the next possible route of escape. Noonday held his place, but he looked aghast.

"You dare to bring our enemy here?" he asked Keff.

Keff hurried to the center of the chaos with his hands outstretched above his head.

"Please! They are not your enemy! They mean you no harm. My friends are called the Cridi. They are your closest neighbors in this part of the galaxy. Their planet circles the twin of your star. They wish to speak because they feel a great wrong has been done them."

"They?" one of the councillors said. It was backed into a corner, its eyes were huge with fear. Its wings were spread out, claw hands poised to defend. "They feel wronged?"

"They do," Keff said. "All they ask of you is that you listen to them. Please!"

It took some more moments of scrabbling at the air to realize that though the Thelerie could not leave the chamber, nothing else ill was happening to them. After many glances over their shoulders at the little plastic balls in the middle of the room, they soon stopped hammering on the doors and walls and windows. The small, green aliens sat in the water at the bottom of their travel globes, almost hidden by the circle of guards. The first Thelerie to have spoken closed its big wings, and daringly edged back toward its cushion.

"That's good," Keff said, his voice soothing. Noonday's voice sounded forth one of their multisyllabic sentences like the mellowest of brass horns. "Won't everyone else please sit down?"

"They fear us so," Big Eyes signed, her hands shaking. She was almost invisible behind the wings of the guards, but Keff heard her small voice over his helmet speaker. "I guessed nothing of this. For so many years, we pictured the destroyer of spaceships as great unknown."

"And they saw you as unmentionable monsters," Keff said. He moved in and pushed the guards aside. "We must put an end to those misunderstandings now, and discover the truth."

The guards looked to the Sayas for direction. At Noonday's nod, they withdrew to a distance of only three meters and settled onto their haunches. Keff sensed that they were not really relaxed, but ready to pounce again if needed. Slowly, all of the griffins but one resumed their places. The last, a young and slender councillor, found that its pad was closest to the Cridi. It crept close, set a single foot on the cushion, then fled, shrieking, to pound on the door again.

"Jurrelanyaro! Jurrelanyaro, yaro!" it cried. Keff walked between the cushions to the end of the chamber, feeling every head swivel to follow him. He stopped and bowed to put a gentle hand on the Thelerie's back. It jumped a meter in the air, its wings outspread, and landed facing the brawn.

"I am a human," Keff said, softly but clearly. "Your people trust humans. I mean you no harm. I promise you will not be harmed. Will you trust me?"

The beast's striped pupils fluctuated wide to narrow to wide. It may not have understood his words, but it seemed to comprehend his tone. It nodded its head. Keff stepped out a pace or so from the wall, and offered an encouraging hand.

"Come, then, and take your rightful place," he said. It followed him like a tame deer, all the while staring timorously at the Cridi. At Keff's signal, the globe-frogs stayed absolutely still. The young Thelerie settled down on all four legs, but its wings were open halfway, literally ready for flight. Keff turned to find that Noonday was smiling at him.

"You must have young of your own," the Sayas said. "We listen."

"Thank you," Keff said. "I would like to introduce the Cridi. You call them the Slime, but that is not their right name. Cridi." Noonday repeated his words in the musical Thelerie language. Keff smiled to himself as some of the beings around the room tried the foreign word on their tongues. "My companions are Tall Eyebrow, leader of the Cridi of the Sky Clear colony; Big Eyes, one of the eight conclave council members of their homeworld of Cridi; Small Spot and Long Hand, both of Sky Clear. Since, unexpectedly, we share a common tongue, you may hear in their own voices the complaints that they have."

Every eye turned toward the Cridi. Keff sensed how nervous the four were, but they held themselves bravely upright. When one of the globes wavered slightly out of line, Tall Eyebrow brought it back to its place with a sharp gesture from the wrist. Big Eyes rolled closest to him, and matched hands with him on the inside of their globes. Gradually, the assembly was quiet, awaiting.

"But they cannot speak for themselves," a white-headed Thelerie said, breaking the silence. "They are only creatures."

"They are not," Keff said. "In my ship I have video of their homeworld, and I assure you their attainments in art and science are most impressive."

"Impossible. They are dumb animals!"

"We can speak," Tall Eyebrow said, projecting his voice to carry as well as it could from his small plastic bubble. His words caused a sensation. As the hubbub grew louder, his high voice cut through the noise like a cutting torch. "But we choose Sir Keff to speak for us."

"Thank the stars for that," Noonday said, removing the wing-fingers from his ears. "Telling the truth, your voices are painful. We are not aware of any wrong that we have done these… people, er, Sir Keff, but you may address us as you please." The senior settled himself down, flipping his wings to his back and arranging his haunches like a big cat.

"I will," Keff said, "as soon as the assembly is complete. I await the arrival of the rest of the Cridi delegation. If you will give permission, and the assurance that they will not be harmed, I will ask them to land." He bowed deeply, sweeping an arm around to the rest of the chamber.

"There are more Slime?" one of the Thelerie asked, flinging its wings about it in the protective posture.

An older assembly member scrabbled up. "We are under attack! Guards!"

"Oh, where is the Melange? They should be protecting us," a slender Thelerie said, wringing both pairs of hands at its breast.

"Silence!" Noonday's voice rose over them like a hunting horn's call, though he did not move. "I give the guarantee. Bring them, Sir Keff."

"Cari?"

"On their way," Carialle said. "There's just about room to land on that balcony, but Narrow Leg shouldn't push his luck. He's going to set down on the roof… just… about… NOW!"

There was a boom! and the thunder of rocket engines shook the council chamber. The Thelerie assembly looked frightened, but none of them broke for the exits. Keff found himself full of admiration for their bravery. In a moment, the shadows of travel globes appeared outside the woven window screens, and the casements opened wide. Naturally, the plump councillor had jockeyed himself into first place, and entered triumphantly.

"I should have been first, before these others," he signed indignantly at Keff.

"It could have been dangerous," Keff gestured back, in as few gestures as possible.

"No matter!" Big Voice said, punctuating his signs with a squeak, now that all peril was past. "I would have faced it for the sake of my people."

Smiling a little, Keff stood forward, like a court herald, and bowed to the Thelerie.

"Allow me to introduce Big Voice, another one of the Eight, Narrow Leg, captain of the Cridi ship, Gap Tooth, Wide Foot…" As he recited their names, the globes touched down on the polished floor and rolled into an arc around Keff's feet.

"I bid you welcome, Cridi," Noonday said, gravely. "And now, speak. What are these grievances?"

Big Voice rolled out just to one side of Keff, where the human could see and hear his every word.

"I have traveled far and endured many hardships to ask these words," Big Voice said in carefully practiced Standard. His voice quavered when faced with so many griffins, awake and mobile, but he puffed himself up and continued. "Your people have confined us, you have killed us, you have stolen from us. What I must know is why? Why do you hate us? Why do you think us monsters?"

The Thelerie stared at him as the assembly resounded with protest. A younger member of the chamber spoke out.

"The Melange told us you were monsters, that you killed innocent beings. You harmed their ships, and would kill us, though we only seek to see what is among the stars. We do not harm your kind. It is the other way around."

"We have never seen your people before." Big Voice shrieked, and several of the Thelerie held their ears. "We do not kill others, and we do not destroy or terrorize. Your Melange have lied to you! Keff is the first human we have ever seen, too!"

"Humans don't lie!" a Thelerie howled angrily, a bassoon counterpoint to Big Voice's piccolo. The plump councillor retreated swiftly into the group of his fellows and hunkered down in his globe.

Keff opened his mouth and shut it again. "I can't say anything," he told Carialle. "If I say humans do lie, then I've started one of those conundrums that makes computers break down."

"What have we stolen?" Noonday asked, in a mild tone intended to calm his listeners. "Will you enumerate your losses?"

"Three power sources, known to us as Cores," Big Voice said, counting on his long fingers, "engines and equipment from our ships, the lives of at least three crews, but most of all, our freedom! We have been imprisoned on our world for fifty of our years, because our ships could not pass the barrier you created!"

Keff translated for the Thelerie, who immediately protested.

"We did not set any barrier," Noonday said, earnestly. "Our people have few ships, which have not crossed out of our star's circuit as of yet. The Melange say we are not ready. It must be their barrier you cannot cross. Surely it is for your own good."

Keff shook his head. "Sayas Noonday, the Cridi don't need any protection of that kind. They are accomplished space travelers, with colonies in other systems."

"Are they?" Noonday asked, eyeing the Cridi with new respect. "They seem so helpless, so… lacking in a center."

"Once we were not," Narrow Leg said, speaking up. "I am old of my kind. I remember the first time we lost contact with a ship, fifty revolutions ago. The Melange must have destroyed it without warning, for no word ever came back to us. They kill to keep us from leaving our world."

"No!" The Thelerie protested the idea of the Melange killing. Keff held up his hands, pleading for silence.

"The spacecraft we saw when we landed," Keff urged, pointing out of the window in the general direction of the landing pad. "Did you construct these?"

"Yes," said Noonday proudly. "They are made of gifts from the good humans who have visited us in the past."

"But the parts were not given freely to those humans," Keff said. "I recognized some of the components, and my associates recognized others as Cridi technology. Piracy is a great problem in our culture, too."

"It is not piracy. You were giving of these objects to us, honored human," one of the younger Ro-sayo said.

Keff shook his head. "I haven't. Many ships were robbed or destroyed to yield those parts."

"It could not be. The Melange is honorable," the first Thelerie protested. The Ro-sayo broke out in hoots and cries of agreement, with the high-pitched whistles of Cridi voices causing many of them to flinch.

"They might have been taking things that didn't belong to them," Keff said.

"Nonsense!" Noonday said. "Some of our most honored citizens have taken ship with the Melange, sworn allegiance, and brought home goods so that we may fly the stars."

"Who are the Melange?" Keff asked, shouting to be heard.

That question provoked the greatest outburst of them all. Noonday gestured for silence, and turned a hard stare on Keff.

"Who are you that you do not know of the Melange?"

"We are travelers," Keff said. "We come from the Central Worlds. That means something to you," he added, as some of the Thelerie conferred hastily among themselves. "Central Worlds is a vast confederation of intelligent peoples, governed by common laws to aid life, health, and prosperity. We go from place to place, meeting new people, and sending word of them back to our Central Committee. I promise you, no word of the Thelerie or of the Melange has ever gotten back to the CenCom."

"But how can this be?" Noonday asked, spreading out all four of his hands. "Humans have given us so much, for so many years. They made themselves one with us, gave us helpful innovations. Why, see," he gestured around him with a narrow wing-finger, "these lamps would never be so small or bright without human machines."

"Cari?" Keff said, turning his body full toward the baroque sconce.

He heard a sharp whistle. "It's a dilute form of heavy-water fuel, Keff, very clean and hot-burning, the sort of high-quality stuff I'd use myself if I could get it. If those valves weren't so small, that whole room would go up, blammo!" Keff blanched.

"Where does the fuel come from?" he asked.

"It lies here and there in the deep places," Noonday said, gesturing vaguely with a few of his hands. "The technology to make use of it was brought to us by humans to our mutual benefit, for which we are very grateful. We assumed that all humankind was behind their good intentions."

"Are there more? More innovations?"

"But, of course," Noonday said, with a gentle smile. It was clear he and the others still did not believe Keff's protestations of ignorance. "For everything the Melange takes from Thelerie, they always bring us gifts, more than fair exchange."

"The Thelerie couldn't be using more than a few million barrels a year for light and heat," Keff said, sublingually. "Leaving a source of quality rocket fuel for whoever knows to come and take it."

"I see why now," Carialle said, "but I still don't know who, or if they connect to me."

The youngest Thelerie, Midnight, stood up and placed an indignant wing-hand on its breast. "You have come here with many accusations. You wrong us, and you wrong our friends and benefactors."

"We do not mean to be offensive," Keff said, "but I assure you we tell the truth. You set great store by honesty. I tell you that we left behind in the Cridi system ten of your people, and they were part of a force that lay in ambush for us." Keff continued over the horrified protestations. "That force was responsible for the destruction of a human-run ship from the Central Worlds. The wreckage of that vessel was found near the ruins of at least three Cridi craft, and parts of many others. I swear to you that this account is true. I have video records of this, and of the beings who confronted us on a planetary base. You see why we must find out the truth here and now."

"I would like to see these 'video,' " the young Ro-sayo said.

"You shall," Keff said. "We do not bring these complaints without proof."

"What you are saying is that Thelerie have been involved in acts of piracy," Noonday said. His noble face was drawn into lines of pain. Keff felt concern for the leader.

"Cari, is he all right?" he asked under his breath.

"Not a cardiac involvement," Carialle said, after a moment's assessment, "but his pulses are running very fast. He's sustained a shock, which is no surprise, considering how many bombshells you've lobbed in the last few minutes."

"What do you want of us?" the leader asked at last.

"It would seem that most of our questions could be answered by your friends the humans," Keff said. "Can we meet the Melange?"