Echoterminus: Echogenesis Book 3, page 5
I was not quite yet ready to depart, however. I dragged the coracle back onto dry land, concealing it beneath carefully-placed branches and forest detritus before returning through the forest to the tallstone.
Now that it was daylight, I could see that the Cents had done more than merely visit the tallstone: they had made camp. I found what appeared to be abandoned hide shelters of a type I had never seen. The Cents are deeply nocturnal creatures who eschew daylight, and while one of my antecedents wrote of discovering such crude shelters, this was the first time I had seen any myself.
The further I explored, the more profound my discoveries became. Densely packed trees and foliage hid a number of large structures, some several storeys in height. All were constructed from wood, and appeared sturdy and indestructible. Food stores, I supposed, although I found nothing within by way of meat or farmed crops.
That same predecessor also claimed to have come across such above-ground settlements. Having myself never come across such a thing, I had assumed he had, like no few of us, fallen prey to visions and madness in his long solitude.
Yet here was the concrete proof that he had been telling the truth.
As I cautiously searched, I recalled that this same predecessor had written of discovering abandoned settlements large enough to house several thousand indigenes, This abandonment had occurred, seemingly almost on a whim, within a few years or sometimes even months of their construction.
He had theorised that these settlements had been built for some unknown singular purpose, then abandoned after fulfilling that purpose. He also claimed to have seen evidence of technology beyond that required to dig subterranean warrens, or manufacture knives and metal-tipped spears, including the remains of wheeled carts and primitive batteries in the form of copper tubes and iron rods embedded within clay pots.
And yet, the indigenes, rather than widely adopting such technological advances, had instead abandoned them in favour of what we Aranyanian humans would see as a far more primitive existence.
At one point, hearing movement in the forest, I took cover. Shortly, a cadre of indigenes appeared, each wearing the painted stripes on their flanks I associated with hunters. It soon became obvious their destination was the nearby tallstone.
I scaled a nearby tree and watched as they circled the tallstone, sometimes moving close enough to it that they could read its deep channels and grooves with their long, flickering tongues. From time to time, one would place a clawed limb against the tallstone, and scratch out some slight alteration to the complex grooves patterning its surface.
This continued late into the night. I ascended higher into the branches as a veritable army of indigenes descended on the tallstone. They gathered in such numbers the ground became lost to sight beneath their churning bodies. The rank sweat of them filled my nostrils.
It speaks to their physical strength, and their innate capacity for artistry, that they could carve such intricate lines and whorls into the tallstone with their claws, as if each one carried within them the latent abilities of a DaVinci or a Michelangelo.
Knowing I would need to interpret the tallstone’s markings, I took several small sips of stone berry juice I had brought with me in a flask. I lashed myself to a branch and soon enough slipped into a dreamless sleep. When next I awoke to dawn’s light, the indigenes had departed as swiftly as they had arrived.
I made my way back down to the forest floor with extreme caution. A musty gloom blanketed the land. The wooden structures loomed above me as I made my way closer to the tallstone.
The stone berry juice I had imbibed limned the trees and undergrowth with a faint iridescence wherever they were touched by sunlight. That same iridescence also touched the tallstone’s whorls and patterns. These patterns meant something to me, but not in any way I can clearly describe—at least, not in human terms. I pressed my dampened tongue against the intricate grooves, making my own crude reading of the information they contained. I moved around the stone for several hours, slowly piecing together the story they told—of ancient destruction, and of an enemy from the skies which, if not stopped, would destroy the world.
It is not accurate to say that I read all of this: in truth, it felt closer to intuition, as if I were experiencing an epiphany, or recalling some long-forgotten memory. Each tallstone is not unlike a palimpsest, in that each additional layer covers over, but often intertwines with, older, underlying patterns.
This much I can say: the tallstone carried clear instructions—to attack and destroy this terrifying threat from the skies. It included directions—or perhaps it is more accurate to say, the memory of routes through the forest—by which an indigene could find its way to two out of three of the human communities now occupying their world.
But not the one of which I had been part.
Exhausted from my study of the stone, I retired for a short time to make a campfire and cook a stew whose ingredients I scavenged from the surrounding land. All the while, I kept my eye out for the arrival of more indigenes, but remained undisturbed for the rest of that day.
I found myself struck by a question that would come to me, again and again, over the following days. The indigenes had no observable system of government, and little that I could see in the way of a social structure. From where, then, did this command arise? Had some king of the indigenes ordered the murders of the crew of each lander, and sent his underlings to inscribe his orders on every tallstone?
My first conjecture: rather than orders, these carvings are instead expressions of what we would call the collective unconscious—a pool of ancestral memory and experience common to all indigenes and which they can share by naturally evolved biochemical means similar to, but infinitely more sophisticated than, the pheromonal signals used by certain insects on both Earth and Aranyani to communicate the location of food sources.
My second conjecture: that the tallstones are a necessary and fundamental component of indigene consciousness—that they are the means by which the indigene’s collective will addresses itself. And by ordering our destruction, this collective will—this being, one might even say—seeks to preserve itself.
All of this led me to a further and, at that moment, more directly pertinent question: why did they not seek the destruction of the human community that lay on the far side of these same mountains?
After long contemplation, the only answer I could find was that Susan Wells’ tiny fiefdom was so well-protected by these mountains that the indigenes knew of no way to reach it. Or perhaps they believed it had been destroyed since, after all, the caves leading to it had been deliberately collapsed. One might surmise the Cents took this as evidence of the expedition’s destruction.
The more I thought about it, the more this seemed like a possible explanation. After all, they had no way of knowing the caves had, in the years since and under Susan’s orders, been dug back out.
A plan formed in my mind.
A long time ago, another Amit had created his own tallstone, carving its surface with crude imitations of the patterns he had seen on indigene monuments. His experiment failed utterly, but I had an advantage: unlike him, I could now interpret these markings, if only crudely.
And if I could understand them, I could include my own directives.
I admit I hesitated, knowing that what I was about to do, if successful, would bring death and destruction upon the innocent and the guilty alike. Nonetheless, I took a hunting knife from my backpack and, steeling myself, stepped back over to the tallstone.
I dug the tip of the blade into the soft stone, scarring over the original designs. Whatever it is in me that understands these stones, and sought to communicate with the indigenes, belongs more to Aranyani than it ever did to Earth.
Soon enough sheer fatigue forced me to stop. My arms and hands ached from long and concentrated effort. I drank some water, then set to work again. Later, I dragged some branches over and placed them against the side of the tallstone so that I could climb up on them and make alterations higher than I could otherwise reach. In this way, I described a third path for the indigenes to follow—one that would lead them back to the caves.
Some hours later, I woke to find I had fallen asleep on the hard ground next to the tallstone. I had no memory of having lain down. Of more immediate concern was that night had fallen once more, and I cursed myself for placing myself in so much danger. Exposed in such a way, I could easily have fallen prey to passing indigenes.
Even as this occurred to me, a distant howling rent the air. Then came the cries of yet more indigenes, this time from a different direction.
I didn’t spare the tallstone, nor my designs, more than a cursory glance. For now, all I could do was hope my efforts had not been in vain. Snatching up my backpack, I ran for the shelter of the trees, my panicked heart thundering in my chest.
FIVE
THE OTHER SAM
“Sam! Wake up.”
A hand roughly shook his shoulder. When he opened his eyes, still drowsy from sleep, Sam found a dark-haired young man staring down at him with eyes that were a little too bright. It took a moment to reconnect the face of this youth with the Vic Traynor he had known back on Earth.
“What is it?” he grumbled, pushing himself up with one shoulder on the narrow cot.
“We need you outside,” Traynor said urgently.
As he stood, Sam took care not to bang his head on the low ceiling of the lander. “Just tell me what happened.”
“This is something you need to hear, Sam. I don’t know if I can describe it. But the sooner you do, the better.”
Hear what? Sam wanted to ask, but Traynor had already exited the tiny cabin.
The moment Sam stepped out of the lander and into the open, he knew exactly what Traynor meant. At first, he thought the sound was the wind, yet the night air felt still and humid.
The howling made him think immediately of wolves—of packs of wild predators rushing through ancient Terran forests. The sound seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, as if emanating from all directions at once.
The back of Sam’s neck prickled with sudden apprehension. Nor was it just one creature making all this racket, by the sounds of it: there must be dozens of them. Perhaps hundreds.
Perhaps more.
Someone had built a campfire close to the tip of one of the lander’s wings. Irish, Kevin and Joshua, along with Jess and Angel, two of Traynor’s people, sat huddled around it. Further off in the distance, Kim Hanh Banh had climbed on top of a boulder at the edge of the clearing. He stared out across the hills, his back to the rest of them.
Traynor stepped over to Jess and dropped to his knees by her. They whispered something to each other, and she reached up to brush his cheek in an intimate gesture. The others around the campfire, like Kim, were staring into the forest with varying degrees of bewilderment, curiosity and fear.
“Do we have any idea what’s making that racket?” Sam asked, stepping over to the campfire.
Irish glanced first at Sam, then at Traynor. “Did you tell him?”
“That’s the other thing we need to talk about,” Traynor said to Sam. “Two of our people are missing.”
“Who?
“Ethan and DeWitt. They left a couple of hours ago and said they’d be back before nightfall.”
Sam stared at Traynor. “Then why the hell didn’t you wake me before now?”
Jess spoke up. “We didn’t think there was a reason to worry yet.” She motioned toward the nearest trees with her chin. “Then we heard that, and, well…”
“We need to look for them,” said Irish.
“And risk more lives?” Joshua said heatedly. “Are you crazy?”
Sam glanced again at Kim, who still hadn’t turned around. “Were they armed?” he asked Traynor, keeping his voice low.
“Of course,” Traynor replied, his voice equally low.
Weapons weren’t supposed to be a part of their mission. Neither Kim Hanh Banh, nor Amit Subarash, had reacted well on learning that the fabrication bay could manufacture firearms: it stood in contradiction to everything they had been told. Explaining that these weapons would only be used for self defence, and only as a last resort, had only partly mollified them. An enraged Subarash had hidden himself away in one of the lander’s analysis labs, studying the local flora to discern what might prove edible to humans.
Sam had his own misgivings, but for different reasons. He and Traynor were still a long way from gaining the trust of the civilian portion of the crew. Supplying them with firearms, especially Ethan, carried the risk that those same weapons might then be turned on him, along with Traynor and the other Repentants.
The original crew had, at least this far, grudgingly accepted the new status quo following Sam’s long speech…but that, he knew, could change in an instant. And if they didn’t supply them with weapons, it could imply Sam didn’t trust them.
Which meant the only thing to do was give them the weapons they needed and hope for the best.
“Wait,” a voice called out.
Sam looked around to see Kim had dropped down from the boulder and was walking toward them with something in his hand.
“I heard you talking,” Kim said, his eyes glittering with fury. “Guns! Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”
“Are you saying we should just let ourselves get killed by whatever’s out there?” Angel asked dryly. “Or never hunt for food?”
“Something has gone very badly wrong,” said Kim. “The Tsiolkovsky was programmed to identify worlds with no evidence of developing species. We must not interfere with the development of intelligent species.”
Sam shook his head. “We haven’t seen any sign of—”
Kim held out a length of carved wood about the length of his forearm, broken off at one end. Odd, swirling patterns decorated the shaft. A honed metal blade, held in place by tightly-wound strips of leather, was affixed to its other end.
The tip, Sam realised numbly, of a spear.
“We’re not alone,” Kim said, somewhat unnecessarily. He passed it to Traynor, who stared down at it as if it were a live snake. “I found it exploring the forest a short distance from here.”
Anything Sam might say caught in his throat as Traynor passed the broken spear tip to him. It felt heavier than it looked, and he wondered how long the unbroken spear had been—and how large the creature that wielded it. The sharpened metal tip alone was nearly the size of his fist.
Whatever had owned this spear, it had been big.
He passed it back to Kim and was grateful his hand did not noticeably shake. “You’ve made your point.”
“You understand this changes everything,” Kim said heatedly. “Everything.”
Sam put up a hand before Kim could continue. “Let’s just focus on the immediate problem,” he said tersely. “What were Ethan and DeWitt doing out there?”
“Mission protocols make finding water a priority,” said Irish. “There’s a stream close by—we found it using one of our drones—but it’s in dense woodland, so difficult to access. They were trying to find an alternative route.”
“Did they take walkie-talkies?”
Irish scowled. “Of course they did. We’ve been trying to contact them the whole time.” Her expression darkened. “Something bad’s happened to them. I’m sure of it.”
“Don’t make any assumptions,” Sam warned her. “Could be there’s interference with the signal, or the equipment’s faulty, or something in this world’s magnetosphere. A million things could have gone wrong.”
“Either way,” said Traynor, looking at Sam expectantly, “we need to make a decision: do we go looking for them, or—” he gestured at the darkened forest around them “—do we stay here where we know we’re safe from whatever’s making that howling?”
What do you need me for? Sam almost asked him. Make up your own damn minds.
Then he remembered the discussions he’d had with Traynor back on Earth. It was important, Traynor had emphasised, that he and his fellow Repentants be seen to defer to Sam’s command at all times. That way, the scientists and engineers making up what remained of the original crew would hopefully be more willing to go along with his orders.
“The drones are pre-programmed with search patterns, aren’t they?” Sam suggested. “Have we tried that?”
“We already tried,” said Irish. “Except…” She glanced at Kevin.
“Except we’re losing them,” said Kevin. “Don’t ask me how. I’ve been using the drones to survey the surrounding terrain out to about fifteen kilometres, but two of them went offline just in the last hour. I called the rest of them back until I can figure out what’s going on.”
“Any clues?” Traynor asked.
“None.” Kevin shook his head. “I checked the video feeds from the lost drones. They were both flying low when their signals cut off.”
Sam glanced again at the broken spear. When he looked at Traynor, he could see from his expression he was thinking the same thing.
“Then I guess we send out more drones to look for them,” said Sam.
“We only have eight,” said Kevin, “including the ones we lost. Some of their components are irreplaceable. We can’t lose too many.”
“Let’s worry about that some other time,” said Sam. “Right now, we need to find those two men. Try flying them higher above the canopy”
“Sure.” Kevin nodded. “But that makes it a lot harder to see anything. You have to fly really low above the canopy of the forest to pick up any visual signals at all.”
“Okay.” Sam nodded, then looked around at the rest of them. “Then that leaves us with one other thing to do, and it won’t be easy. Somebody needs to go out there and try to find them. I know it’s a tough call under the circumstances, but—”
“No, it’s fine,” said Irish, standing. “I’ll go.”
