"We are blessed. We are blessed with the voices of our ancestors," the high priestess cried, tears of joy giving her speech liquid qualities. "We are so very blessed." The assembled multitude responded, humbly but with great passion.
The deep, heavy bell tolled again, six times, and the high priestess gestured grandly. The judges strode forward—nine guilder females. They arrayed themselves, solemn and imposing, behind nine onyx monoliths. They wore the same orange robes as the votaries, but they also wore necklaces of sparkling onyx. The hall was still, a stillness beyond silence, for it was the time of reckoning. Cliff dweller laws were few, but penalties severe; any cliff dweller who willfully caused harm could be banished, doomed to die in the freezing wilderness.
"We are blessed," intoned the high priestess, "with justice. Let justice have voice! Read the names."
And the trials began.
"It's cold!" Fenstermacher complained, feeding the ante. "It's cold every day!" Chief Wilson said, dealing the cards.
"Stop complaining! It's a hell of a lot colder back at the cave," Dawson chided.
"So what's going on, Lieutenant? Why the day off?" Wilson asked. He sat on a deep pile of furs looking at his poker hand.
Buccari pored over stacks of dweller writings—the dictionary. The collection of writings and drawings had grown large. Hudson and MacArthur were helping her organize the icons and symbols.
"Liz wouldn't say," she replied. "He said we had to stay in our barracks today. Some kind of religious day—a holiday, maybe?"
"There are extra guards down the passageway," Shannon said. "I pass."
"A religious day?" Fenstermacher asked. "What kind of religion do they have?"
"Hard to say," Buccari answered. "Some kind of animism."
"What?" Fenstermacher persisted. "They worship animals?"
"They worship everything," MacArthur answered. "To them every rock, tree, and mountain has a soul. They worship the planet. And they have different sects or life-purposes—the tall ones, the workers, actually pray to the rocks, or to the plants, or to the fish, or to the steam, depending on their training. The hunters worship the wild animals."
Buccari looked up at MacArthur. The Marine, standing close to her, looked away, embarrassed.
"You're picking this up quickly, Mac," she said thickly. "Keep at it. More of us need to communicate with our new friends. It's like learning how to read." MacArthur blushed and smiled weakly.
"Yeah, Mac," Hudson agreed, absorbed in the material before him. "This stuff is ambiguous and Sharl, er—Lieutenant Buccari never buys my interpretation. Like this, Sharl; check this out."
"What's it in response to?" she asked. Hudson had organized a keying system to match questions with answers.
"It relates to the series of questions on other races and peoples," Hudson replied. "We were trying to determine if they had ever seen other aliens or flying machines."
"Yeah," Buccari said. "And…"
"I read this sequence to say they've seen flying machines, but not recently—not in four years, and then only rarely before that. They also describe giants or bear people. Here, tell me what you think." He pushed the parchment sheets over. Buccari stared at them. MacArthur moved tentatively closer.
"You're right, Nash," she said after a while. "This indicates the dwellers saw loud, rigid-wing flying objects. Four winters, er— years ago." Buccari stared at the pages, shifting her view. "Their mythology includes stories of large people—giants or bear people— emerging from such flying machines. The bear people had weapons that made music, or sang. Weapons that killed from great distances."
"Giants, eh?" Wilson remarked. The poker game halted in mid-hand.
"Don't forget," Hudson said. "They think of us as giants, too."
"Not quite the same, Nash," Buccari interrupted. "Lizard uses this term big to describe us. The term he uses to describes the mythical beings seems to be more emphatic, a difference of degree. Liz makes it clear that no living dweller has seen one of these mythical bear people, but many dwellers have seen their flying machines."
"How about the singing weapons?" MacArthur asked. "Lasers?"
"Good guess," Shannon said soberly.
Everyone's attention was drawn to the entrance of their living quarters; Chastain and Gordon walked in, shaking snow from their furs.
"We thought we heard something," Chastain said.
"Like what, Jocko?" Buccari asked.
"Music, bells, whistling, or—something. Weird noises. It kinda got under your skin. Kinda pretty, though," he said thoughtfully.
"I miss music," Dawson said absentmindedly. She started humming a long forgotten tune. After a short period of time she stopped abruptly and looked around, embarrassed.
"It was pretty, Nancy," Lee said. "Don't stop."
"I'm embarrassed," she replied.
"You mean embarrassing," Fenstermacher chuckled. Dawson' s thrown boot missed badly.
Wilson stood up. "I used to sing. I remember some old songs." "Don't go singing beer-drinking songs," Shannon jibed. "Yes! Keep it clean, Gunner," Buccari requested.
"He can't even breathe and do that," Fenstermacher needled. Everyone laughed as Wilson chased Fenstermacher into the cold passageway. Buccari turned back to the dweller writings and pondered the future. It was going to be a long winter. She looked up to see MacArthur staring at her. MacArthur grinned bashfully and turned away, his color rising. No one but Buccari noticed.
Dawson and Wilson began harmonizing an ancient carol. Soon all were singing, and it was beautiful.
Chapter 29. Spring
The alpine lake in MacArthur's Valley was large, a full day's hike to circumnavigate. At its southern end, on the eastern side, a finger of forest protruded, forming a cove. Wooded islets protected the mouth of the harbor. MacArthur had seized on the locale early in his explorations. Besides sheltered access to the lake, there was an abundance of wood—evergreen and hardwood—and the soil seemed favorable for planting. But the primary attraction was the spring, an irrepressible knuckle of sweet water bubbling from the ground. It flowed energetically across flower-margined stones to the cove's sandy beach.
"Ouch, this water's cold," Goldberg said, squatting next to the gurgling spring, rinsing fish entrails from her hands. Fat lake fish lay beheaded and gutted on the rocks. A hunter perched near-by, watching with obvious interest. Dawson had named him Bluenose.
"Chief Wilson's got a pot of water on the fire," Dawson said, cleaning her knife in the sand. "Let's see if we can clean off some of this smell."
"I feel like I've been gutting fish all my life," Goldberg moaned.
"Cheer up," Dawson said, throwing Bluenose a piece of fish. The hunter deftly caught it in his long jaw and swallowed it whole. "Hudson says today is our anniversary. We've been here one Earth year."
"That's supposed to make me feel better?" Goldberg asked, looking up at the sound of a tree crashing to the ground. Tookmanian and Schmidt were clearing timber up the hill. Downhill, near the cove beach, Lee and Mendoza tilled black, muddy soil, only recently uncovered by receding lake waters. Oneof the tall dwellers—a gardener—scurried about, hoe in hand and a satchel of seeds about its neck.
"Give me a hand, little momma," Dawson pleaded, collecting her gear, including a pistol. At least one person in every work group was armed; the cove's largest drawback was the number of Gargantuan bears that still considered it their territory. Two grizzled monsters had already paid with their truculent lives; their furs stretched on tanning frames downwind from the tents.