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"Me? What are you thinking of, Letha?" |
"Of your face. It looks suddenly like a nomad's face. You remind me of |
an old schnorrer who used to wander through our gardenboro every year to |
play his fiddle, and sing us songs, and steal our chickens." |
"I don't fiddle." |
"But your eyes are on the sky-fleet." |
Evon paused, hovering between irritation and desire to express. "It's |
strange," he murmured at last. "It's as if I know them the star-birds, |
I mean. Last night, when I saw them first, it was like looking at |
something I expected to happen... or... or...." |
"Something familiar?" |
"Yes." |
"You think he has the genemnemon, Marrita?" she asked the blonde girl |
who sat on the cool rock by the spring. |
Marrita looked up from dabbling her toes in the icy trickle. "I don't |
believe in the genemnemon. My great grandfather was a thief." |
"How silly! What's that to do with it?" |
"He buried a fortune, they say. If there was a genemnemon, I'd remember |
where he buried it, wouldn't I?" She pouted, and went back to dabbling a |
club toe in the spring. |
Evon snorted irritably and arose to stretch. "We lie around here like |
sleepy pigs!" he grumbled. "Have the Pedaga nothing to do but wait on |
the Geoark to make up its mind?" |
"What do you think they'll do?" |
"The Geoark? Invite the strangers to land. What else could they do?" |
"Tell them to go away." |
"And suppose they chose not to go?" |
The girl looked bewildered. "I can't imagine anyone refusing the |
Geoark." |
"Maybe they've got their own Geoark. Why should they cooperate with |
ours?" |
"Two Geoarks? What a strange idea." |
"Is it strange that you and I should have two brains? Or were you aware |
that I have one too?" |
"Evon! What a strange idea." |
He seized her by the ankles and dragged her squealing to the spring, |
then set her down in the icy trickle. Marrita moved away, grumbling |
complaints, and Letha snatched up a switch and chased him around the |
glade, shrieking threats of mayhem, while Evon's laughter broke the |
gloomy air of the small gathering, and caused a few other Pedaga to |
wander into the clearing from the pathways. |
"I think we should prepare a petition for the Geoark," someone |
suggested. |
"About the sky-fleet? And who knows what to say?" |
"I'm afraid," said a girl. "Somehow I'm suddenly afraid of them." |
"Our brothers from the Exodus? But they're people such as you and I." |
So went the voices. After an hour, a crier came running through the |
glade to read another message received from the sky-fleet. |
PROPAUTH EARTH FROM COMMSTRAFEFLEET THREE, SPACE, KLAEDEN COMM, |
PRESENTS GREETINGS! |
HAVING RECEIVED NO ANSWER TO OUR PREVIOUS COMMUNICATION, WE |
HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO LAND AT ONCE. I AM IMPOSING AN |
INFORMATIONAL QUARANTINE TO AVOID RESTIMULATING POSSIBLE |
RECESSIVE KULTURVERLAENGERUNG, BUT SUGGEST YOU GUARD |
YOURSELVES. OUR CULTURES HAD A COMMON ORIGIN. WE COME IN ARMS, |
WITHOUT ENMITY. |
ERNSTLI BARON VEN KLAEDEN, COMMANDING STRAFEFLEET THREE, |
SPACESTRIKE COMMAND IMPERIAL FORCES OF THE SECESSION |
This was even more mystifying than the previous one, even less |
meaningful in translation. One thing was clear, however: the fleet was |
going to land, without invitation. |
Embarrassed, the elders of the Geoark immediately called the tech clans. |
"Can you revive the devices that speak across space?" they asked. |
"They are revived," answered the tech clans. |
"Then let us speak to our brothers from space." |
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