<With all respect, Elder, you are wrong,> Golden Voice said, and in that moment her mind voice held the regal assurance which echoed still in the mind songs of Sings Truly herself. She was perhaps a quarter of Bark Master’s age and the newest member of his clan, to boot, yet she faced his vehemence with neither trepidation nor personal challenge, and Branch Leaper felt a deep respect for her—and an even deeper envy of Laughs Brightly.
<Why so, sister-of-choice?> Wind of Memory asked. She alone tasted almost as calm as Golden Voice, yet she watched the younger female unblinkingly, her concentrated gaze a pale reflection of the intensity with which she tasted the other’s mind glow and mind voice.
<Because it is no longer necessary… and because we are no longer kittens, Senior Singer,> Golden Voice told her. <There is no need to learn still more of the humans. Surely you, who have sung the songs of every human who has ever been adopted, of every one of the People who has ever returned to tell of all he and his person have seen and done, must see that. You know the name of every human—their human names, as well as those the People have given—who has ever been adopted. You know the full songs of their lives, of how they have protected and kept our secrets… and of how the other humans with whom we share this world have also learned to protect and accept us. We might hide our full cleverness forever, but if we do so only to insure the safety of the People while we learn more of the humans, then we have hidden it long enough. If we are never to reveal the truth, then we must find a better reason than fear of the humans’ reaction, Senior Singer.>
Wind of Memory considered that, then flicked her ears in agreement.
<More than that, though,> Golden Voice continued, <great changes are about to befall our humans—and through them, us—on all sides. They are at war—> she used the human word, for the mind voices of the People had no matching reference, yet all who heard it knew of what she spoke <—with an enemy with far more nests, far more people, than our humans. Laughs Brightly and I have met some of those enemies.> The tail wrapped about her mate tightened again, and his tail slipped comfortingly about her, as well. <I lost my human to them, and Laughs Brightly has lost those he cared for deeply, and who Dances on Clouds loved, to them, as well, and some of them are truly evil, in a way few of the People could ever fully understand. Most are not, of course. Indeed, the mind glows of many of those we have met might equally well have been the mind glows of our own humans. Yet Laughs Brightly and I have also seen the weapons they use and tasted the fear of many of the humans—of the enemy humans, as well as our own—of where this war may lead. It may come even here, for our humans are dreadfully outnumbered. They are brave and determined, and I believe they fight much better than their enemies, yet not the bravest heart may hold back the ice days or forbid the mud days’ floods. Their weapons can kill even worlds, Senior Singer—accidentally, as well as deliberately. I know our humans would die before they willingly permitted such weapons to be used here, for this is their world, as well, and they would protect us as fiercely as they do their own younglings. Yet still it may happen, and what would become of Bright Water Clan, or the memory songs of its People, if such a weapon should strike here, in this central nesting place?>
A cold mental silence answered her, and Branch Leaper felt that same icy chill at his own heart. He had never even considered such a possibility, yet he knew now that he should have. He, too, had heard the memory songs, tasted the very mind glows, of Laughs Brightly and his human as they faced the terrible weapons Golden Voice had just described. And in those songs, Laughs Brightly had always known that such terrible human tools might be unleashed even here on the world of the People. Yet somehow the connection had never made itself for Branch Leaper, for such devices were too utterly beyond his own ken. And as he tasted the stunned silence about him, he knew he was not alone in that. That perhaps even the memory singers themselves had not recognized—or admitted to themselves that they did—the implications of all Laughs Brightly and others like him from other clans had reported to their memory singers.
<There is nothing the People can do to prevent such disaster,> Golden Voice went on with that same terrible, unflinching honesty and awareness, <and as I have said, our own humans would face death willingly to prevent it for us. Yet that does not mean that we should be blind to the chance that it might befall us despite all they can do.>
<Yet you yourself have just pointed out that there is nothing we can do to avert it,> Bark Master pointed out. His mind voice was no longer stubborn. It was half-stunned and frightened, yet his response was not one of simple panic. He spoke as a clan elder, one whose responsibility it was to recognize the dangers which beset Bright Water and to avert them… and who knew now that there was a danger he could not avert, however hard he might seek to do so.
<No, but we may take steps to allow for the consequences,> Golden Voice told him. <That is one reason I say that it is time to end our deception. The People live on only one world; our humans claim three as their own nest places, with many others as the nest places of their allies and friends. I believe it is time that the People also spread their nest places wider, sought ranges on other worlds, as well as this one of our own.>
<Other worlds?!> Bark Master stared at her in disbelief, and she flicked her ears with just a hint of impatience.
<Clan Elder, it is past time for such a decision,> she said firmly, with all the authority of the memory singer she had never become. <We have known for hands of hands of turnings that those worlds are there. Laughs Brightly and I have visited many of them, tasted their air and their water, smelled their soil, climbed their trees. Not all would make good homes for the People, and even many of those which would would not allow us to live there as we have always lived here. We would be forced to learn new ways and new things, to adjust our customs, perhaps even change many of them completely. Yet to live is to make decisions and to grow; to refuse decisions or to grow is to die inside, even if the body lives on. The People have always been slow to change, yet we have always known that change cannot be avoided… and that change is not always evil or wrong simply because it is change. More than that, we have our humans to help us. Do you think, after all that we have learned of them, all the rules they have made among their own kind to protect us, that they would not help us in this?>
<But they could not help us as they always have in the past,> Wind of Memory pointed out, raising a true-hand to gesture at the dense green leaves and broad picketwood branches about them. <If we must change our ways and our customs on those other worlds, we could no longer live as the People have always lived, or apart from our humans.>
<We could not,> Golden Voice agreed. <That is one of the great reasons I say it is time to drop our deception. If we would live on the other worlds of our humans—or even on still more distant worlds—then we must weave new patterns with all humans. We must allow them to realize how clever we truly are, and even those of the People who do not bond to humans must learn to live among them. Not simply as we do now, when any of the People may visit any human nesting place for a time and then return to our own ranges, but permanently, and that may be hard. And in time, I suspect, we must also find ways to do things that they need, so that they will learn to treat us as our bonded humans do—as partners whose skills and work are valued, and not simply as kittens to be protected, as so many other humans now see us. We have permitted ourselves to be seen so for too long, Memory Singer. Indeed, there are times when I wonder if we have not come to see ourselves so.>