“When the temperature rises and the oceans melt, you’d have ample rainfall. In addition to enhancing an explosion of vegetation on land, such a drastic change would kill off the pika-pina and pika-pedan. Despite such changes, some plants have managed to survive the cold periods. Witness the yellow grass and occasional wire-brush we’ve passed these past days. Those grasses and the unknown varieties contained in these seeds take over the land. The pika-growth would retreat to the poles, waiting for cold epochs to return. We’ve seen how fast it grows. It could expand down from the poles, and perhaps from isolated surviving pockets on the shores, to become the dominant vegetable species in a very short time.
“I wish I had a decent laboratory here. These eggs… Somehow they survive thirty thousand years before the land warms and frees them. That’s important, because there are pretty disorganized people wandering around at that time, looking for food.
“The Golden Saia are not a different variety of Tran, nor are the Tran a species of Saia.” He gestured at Hunnar, at Elfa, at Ta-hoding. “You and the Saia are the same people.”
A mate made a disgusted noise.
“The Saia are the warm-weather mode of the Tran. During the onset of cold, those who survive the radical weather change develop thick fur. Wing dan appear and podal claws expand and grow to become chiv for traveling across the ice.” He sat down behind his table of living fossils.
“Think what such cataclysmic change would do to a developing but still primitive society. Famine, death from exposure, the near instant destruction of familiar food supplies. Sea travel obliterated, cutting off intercontinental and interisland communication. A drastic reduction in population—which explains the extent of these cities compared to the size of present Tran communities.
“It explains, Hunnar, why your people retain no memory of your warm weather ancestors. Survival would be more than enough to occupy every mobile minute of the dazed remnants of that hot climate civilization. How to make a fire, how to cook food, those would be the important things to hand down to shivering children. Not history. Given the frequency of the warm-cold weather cycle, you never have the chance to catch your racial breath.”
“No ice—free-flowing water for oceans?” Hunnar’s expression showed both horror and disbelief, as if someone had proved unequivocally that the world was flat.
“No ice,” said Ethan slowly. “And probably no real winds to speak of, either. Rain instead of snow and ice particles—-good-water-falling-from-the-sky,” he translated awkwardly, remembering that the Tran had no word for rain.
“No ice.” Hunnar seemed unable to pass beyond that incredible concept. “One could fall all the way through to the center of the world.”
“Water can support you, Hunnar, though not as well as ice.” Ethan forbore trying to describe what swimming was.
“The more reason for this confederation.” September brought them back to the present, back from speculations future and past. “If this information can be conveyed back to a few Commonwealth bureaucrats in the right agencies, it could mean a change so big and important here that—well, I can’t put into words what it would mean to your people, Hunnar.
“More o’ less, it’d mean that the next time your world warms up and you develop a nice, burgeoning society, get yourselves growing good and proper, then when it turns cold again, Commonwealth technology will be there to help you cope. Assumin’ the Commonwealth stands. I don’t make predictions for any government. They’ve got a disconcertin’ way o’ self-destructing.
“And you’d be able to develop a true planetary society for the first time, gain a continuity of racial development and history your world’s knocked down every time its gotten started.
“But it won’t do anybody any good unless we get this knowledge to Commonwealth authorities and show them there’s a world here cryin’ out for associate status and some honest recognition.”
XVI
IT WAS SEVERAL DAYS before they broke into the Assembly. The impressive domed chamber was buried beneath a huge slide. That unstable ground made Ethan and several others reluctant to enter, despite the apparent stability of the intact ceiling. Williams and Eer-Meesach could not be restrained, however. They were followed by others, reluctantly, into the largest enclosed space they’d found on Tran-ky-ky.
Built of stone and metal so solid that it supported the cumulative weight of dirt, rock and structures above it, the dome was filled with engravings and mosaics which proved conclusively most of William’s assumptions.
“You were not entirely correct, my friend.” Eer-Meesach ran a gnarled finger across one wall bas-relief. “The yellowish grass does not drive out the pika-pina but rather is a warm weather variety of it, as the Golden Saia are warm weather versions of us Tran.”
Williams was examining the carvings, nodding slowly in agreement. “Probably the nutrients concentrated in the pika-pina and pedan are moved landward and help to revive the dormant grasslands.”
“But what are these?” The elderly wizard indicated a profusion of small carvings, each different from the next. Remnants of ancient dyes still clung to the bare stone.
“Do you not remember them from the land of the Saia?” said Elfa. She turned to Ethan. “What did you call them?”
“Flowers.” He walked over, avoiding rocks and broken stone which littered the floor. “So the pika-pina flowers before it gives way to the grasses. Milliken, maybe every creature that flies, swims or chivans on Tran-ky-ky has both cold-and hot-climate varieties. That creature on the wall over there, isn’t that a stavanzer?”
“No,” Hunnar insisted from nearby. “Those strange things on its front—”
“Gills!” Ethan shouted it. “The stavanzer does look vaguely like a beached whale. Dormant gills don’t show themselves until the oceans turn to water. A stavanzer could never support its own weight on land.”
“I’m sure,” added Williams, “that the creature could exist as an amphibian for as long as was necessary to complete the transition to a watery existence.”
“I would much like to see these things you call ‘ghuls’.” Hunnar took a knife from his belt, handed it handle-first to Williams. “Go and kill a stavanzer and I will help you do the looking inside.” Laughter human and Trannish resounded in the chamber, producing echoes that were anything but eerie.
A week later the Slanderscree was filled with a cargo as unusual as it was diverse. There were hundreds of kilos of carvings, artifacts, sections of mosaic and wall. Enough proof of Tran-ky-ky’s erratic history both sociological and climatological to convince the stubbornest bureaucrat or Landgrave of The Truth.
September and Ethan were once again discussing the Tran’s future and history as the last of the cargo was secured in the spaces within the deck.
“Likely in the Saia mode all the Tran lived together on a few continents, lad,” the giant said. “Raisin’ a new civilization until the cold wiped it out, forcing ’em to disperse to the islands to survive. The harsher the climate, the more territory it generally takes to support folks.
“Now that we can prove they all used to live together and cooperate, it ought to be easier to get ’em to do it again.” He punctuated the comment with a reverberant grunt.
When they produced the evidence many days later, back in the steaming lands, the Golden Saia accepted the unarguable with typical lack of visible emotion. Their words betrayed their true excitement. Here was proof of most of their legends, solidified with a knowledge hitherto unsuspected. Listening to the legend-spinners, Williams and Eer-Meesach were able to fill in portions of the history that silent stone and walls had been unable to tell.