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elapt1c
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ElapticAI-512

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AGRARIAN-TECHNICAL COMPLEX, BUT DETAILS NOT AVAILABLE. WE COME
IN ARMS, BUT WITHOUT ENMITY. PLEASE REPLY, IF POSSIBLE.
ERNSTLI BARON VEN KLAEDEN, COMMANDING STRAFEFLEET THREE,
SPACESTRIKE COMMAND, IMPERIAL FORCES OF THE SECESSION
So it came, repeated continuously for an hour, followed by an hour of
silence, and then by another hour of repetition. The linguists were
unable to discern meanings. Thousands of memorizers were consulted, but
none knew the words of the harsh voice from the ships. At last, the
sages consulted the books and memnoscripts in the ancient vaults,
pouring over tomes that had been buried for countless centuries. After
hours of hurried study....
"It is found, it is found, a tongue of the ancients!" a joyous cry in
the glades and the garden pathways.
Happily, the sages recorded the linguistic structure of the forgotten
tongue on memnoscript, and gave it to a servo translator. Outmoded
mechanisms were being brought out of wraps and prepared for use. The
servos supplied a translation of the message, and the sages studied it.
"It is badly understood," was the curious mutter along the garden
pathways.
"Many words have no words to match them, nor any thoughts that are
similar," was the only explanation the sages could give.
In translation the message seemed meaningless, or unfathomable. Only one
thing was clear. The sons of Man meant to descend again upon the world
of their ancestors. There was a restless unease in the gardens, and
groups of elders gathered in the conference glades to mutter and glance
at the sky. "Invite our brothers to land," was the impetuous cry of the
young, but there were dissenters.
In the Glade of Sopho, a few thoughtful clansmen of Pedaga had gathered
to muse and speak quietly among themselves, although it was not
ordinarily the business of tutors to consider problems that confronted
society as a whole, particularly problems arising outside society
itself. The Pedaga were teachers of the very young, and deliberately
kept themselves childlike in outlook in order to make fuller contact
with the children in their charge.
"I think we should tell them to go away," said Letha, and looked around
at the others for a response.
She got nothing in reply but a flickering glance from Marrita, who sat
morosely on a cool rock by the spring, her chin on her bare knees. Evon
gave her a brief polite smile, to acknowledge the sound of her voice,
but he returned almost at once to absently tearing twigs and glancing up
at the bits of sky that showed through the foliage of the overhanging
trees. Iak and Karrn were whispering together at the far end of the
glade, and had not heard her.
Letha shrugged and leaned back against the tree trunk again, sitting
spraddle-legged this time in the hope of catching Evon's eye. She was a
graceful girl, and while gracefulness is sometimes feline, Letha's was
more nearly kittenish. She was full-bodied and soft, but well-shaped in
spite of a trace of plumpness. Thick masses of black hair fell over
baby-skin shoulders in a pleasing contrast, and while her face was a bit
too round, it radiated a gentle, winning grin, and the sympathetic gaze
of gray-blue eyes. Now she seemed ready to pout. Evon remained
self-absorbed.
"I think we should tell them to go away," she repeated a little sharply.
"They'll all be big and swashbuckling and handsome, and the children
will become unmanageable as soon as they see them. All the little girls
will swoon, and all the little boys will want to go with them."
Evon glanced at her briefly. "It's up to the elders of the Geoark," he
muttered without interest, and prepared to return to his own
meditations.
"And all the big girls will run away with them," she purred with a
tight smile, and stretched a languorous leg out in front of her to
waggle her foot.
Evon shot her a quick glance, held it for a moment, then looked skyward
again. She pursed her lips in irritation and glared at him. Gradually,
she forgave him. Evon was distraught. He must be because she hadn't
seen him sit still this long in years. He was always doing something,
or looking for something to do. It wasn't like Evon just to sit still
and think. He was a restless, outgoing fellow, nearly always reacting
boisterously, or laughing his staccato laugh. Now he just sat there and
looked puzzledly in the direction of the sky-fleet. Looking puzzled
didn't fit his face, somehow. It was a bony brown face, slightly oily,
with a long narrow jaw that jutted forward like a plowshare under an
elastic smirk. It was a rubbery kind of a face, the kind that could
twist into horrid masks for the amusement of the young. Now it just
drooped.
She stirred restlessly, driven to seek sympathetic understanding.
"You wonder what it's like, Evon?" she asked.
He grunted at her quizzically and shook his head.
"To be one of the children of the Exodus, I mean," she added.