This planet, like Old Earth, had one large moon. The woman looked hard at it and gulped. ~The moon shows her face full.~
Now the man followed her gaze, then twisted around to catch a view of the planet beneath them. Puzzlement showed strong on his face.
“Captain Drago,” Kris said.
“More trouble?”
“No, but could you arrange to discharge one of the aft lasers into the ocean next time we’re back to the planet?”
“A demonstration of Sky God fire, huh?”
“Something like that.”
“Wait one. Actually, wait fifteen seconds.”
Kris pointed aft as the moon disappeared and the planet came in full view below. They were over the narrow ocean between West and East Continents. There was a jet of reaction mass aft, then one bright laser beam reached through it and down.
Below them, the ocean steamed and roiled. Clouds rose and churned.
~We can burn the water and the earth,~ Kris said. ~We do not.~
~You do not,~ the man repeated several times, total puzzlement on his face.
~Can you sing for us the old songs?~ Kris asked.
~Yes, I can,~ the bald woman said. ~Let me feast my eyes on what I have never seen.~
~I can wait,~ Kris said.
In hushed awe, all of them feasted their eyes on space, and moon, and a blue-green planet. After a long time had passed, Jack reopened the hatch and, one by one, they walked, eyes looking back at the sights they’d seen, into the cave of the Wasp’s drop bay.
28
~The People lived in peace and harmony,~ the bald woman sang.
~The People fished and hunted in peace and harmony.
~Then the hard demons came, and there was no peace and harmony.~
The woman moved around the fire. Sometimes she’d pound the butt of her totem hard on the deck. Other times, she’d wave it high over her head. Not for a moment did she stop moving, stop waving the stick passed down from grandmother to grandmother.
The others sat around the “fire” in the Wasp’s drop bay. The bald woman’s song went long, and had a lot of repetitions in it; how else would it have survived unchanged for so many years? There was also a lot missing. Kris spotted nothing about genetic manipulation, but that didn’t surprise her. The song had the basic facts down.
The hard demons had come. They had conquered and enslaved the People, and the People had wept bitter and bloody tears. In time, the hard demons made the mistake of getting soft, or maybe they just got sloppy. The People rose up and slaughtered the demons, they took from them the power to walk the stars, and they then took their wrath and vengeance across the stars to where the soft demons lived.
The story got very gory at that point. It went into great detail on just how they disemboweled this one and chopped that one’s head off. ~Infants’ heads, they smashed against the stone,~ was one that particularly sent shivers down Kris’s spine, but the listening natives seemed to like that particular verse.
It was repeated many times, and they pounded their fists on the deck each time.
Jack held Kris closer when that happened.
The important part, the part that made listening to the gory tale worth it, came near the end. The warrior tribes that walked the stars met with the tribes that had not gone on the walk to the other world. Some were for walking the stars forever so that this could never happen again to them. Others were for taking their torn world and returning to the way it had been before.
There were many angry words. In the end, the two went their separate ways. But the anger of the Sky Gods still spilled on any who walked away from ~the ways from of old~ and tried to build a path that could lead back to the stars.
~We must walk the path of our grandmothers and their grandmothers.
~We must hunt along the path of our grandfathers and their grandfathers.
~You stray from the path and you will burn.~
The bald woman came suddenly to a halt. She spat those words at the bearded man.
~So, my man, what path will you have the people walk now?~
It appeared that Kris had guessed the family relationship right. Which only left her wondering if any old married couples were ever still happy?
She filed that away in “to be determined later,” and tried to figure out what to say next.
But the old man was already coming to his feet. When he spoke, it wasn’t to the woman but to all those around the fire.
~Our wisewoman speaks wisdom, as she does from of old. I would chose to walk the different path we set our feet to today.~
He paused, folded his hands across his chest, and went on. ~I do not see that we have walked it so far that we cannot walk back. If that is the way for you, walk it, and I will cheer you. I have seen the stars, and the logs these people ride in to float between the stars. My son’s son lives because of the craft they have to hunt for a lad’s smile. If these different star gods will have me, I will walk with them.~
“I didn’t see that coming,” Jack whispered to Kris.
“I expect there are a lot of surprises coming from these people,” Kris answered.
~Our son’s son still lingers at the hole down into the earth,~ the old woman jumped in, reminding any who might have forgotten the child sleeping fitfully in the medical-quarantine tent.
~Yes, and I do not know what tomorrow’s sun will shine on,~ the grandfather agreed. ~Still, having fed your eyes on what we ate today, would you not follow this path?~
~It is not the path of my grandmother and her grandmother.~
~No. There is more to eat here,~ he said. The deck of the shuttle was littered with the leavings from the strange feast the Marines had provided.
~Are you sure they are not demons?~ the old woman demanded. ~Different from the hard-skinned demons~—her eyes picked out dark-skinned Gunny Brown where he sat cross-legged by the “fire”—~but demons just the same?~
The friendly alien leader drew his flint knife and raked its blade across his forearm. Red blood flowed.
Both of the aliens, old man with a bleeding arm and the wisewoman with all the accusations, looked at Jack.
Jack stepped forward and offered his arm. The man cut it. Red blood flowed.
Gunny had seen the look the woman threw in his direction. He might not have understood the words, but he read the glare perfectly. He rose from his place and came to offer his black arm to the knife.
Again, the flint blade cut flesh. Again, the blood dripping onto the deck was red.
~I will not speak for you,~ the old alien man said. ~I will speak for me. I will follow after these people. Where they walk, I will walk. Their people will be my people. Their enemies will be my enemies. This I say by soil and water. This I say by sun and moon. Let me live and die by these words.~
KRIS, I THINK GUNNY’S GOT A NEW RECRUIT, Jack said on Nelly Net.
I DOUBT THERE IS A STRONGER OATH THESE PEOPLE CAN SWEAR, Jacques added.
WHAT COMES NEXT? Kris asked.
I THINK WE WAIT AND SEE, was all Jacques could say.
Two local men rose from their places and came to stand beside their leader. One of them was the boy’s father. A couple of women did, too, but not his mother. For a long minute, nothing more happened, then a couple of more men stood up but didn’t move to join the three.
Over the next couple of minutes more joined one group or the other. The bald woman moved from her husband’s side to where the other group stood.
“I don’t like the looks of this,” Kris said.
“Do you think it’s as bad as it seems?” Jack asked.
“I think,” Jacques said slowly, eyeing both groups, “the admiral has the shape of things. How many of them brought their knives?”