A Forest of Stars - Kevin J. Anderson [81]
One wall was a trapezoidal blank space like a window made of stone, oddly devoid of Klikiss markings, framed by a sequence of symbol plates. On the smooth surface, brownish red smears—bloody handprints—stood out like a shout—as if in the last moments before his death, Louis Colicos had pounded the wall, trying to make it open.
With furrowed brow, Lotze looked at the handprint and the blank wall. “Two bodies recovered, but still no explanations. And where is Margaret Colicos?”
A rippling shudder went down Rlinda’s back. She felt they might be here on Rheindic Co for a long time indeed.
40
ANTON COLICOS
“I have chosen an activity you may enjoy, Rememberer Anton,” Vao’sh said. “I am intrigued by the favorite techniques of traditional human storytellers. Let us see if we can re-create some of them.”
The rememberer took him out to the seaside, where they sat alone on a blustery plateau a dozen meters above the waters of a sheltered inlet. The breeze was warm, and Anton detected a sour tang of blooming aquatic plant life, rafts of large orange flowers like a crossbreed of lily pads and ribbony kelp.
Bustling, jabbering attenders had arrived ahead of them and piled knobby driftwood into a conical mound interspersed with dry tinder. The small-statured servant kithmen ignited the pile of wood, then withdrew as the flames took hold. The attenders scuttled away.
The two historians, isolated now, sat on cushiony mosslike growths in the soft sand. The bonfire rose higher, flickering on their faces. “Is this not the correct milieu, Rememberer Anton? Spinning tales by a campfire at the seaside?”
Anton smiled. “Of course, you’re missing one vital ingredient—such stories are best told in the dark, rather than constant dazzling daylight.”
Vao’sh shuddered. “That is not the sort of thing any Ildiran would enjoy.”
The young man leaned toward the flames, rubbing his hands together. “We’ll make do.”
As a boy, he remembered staying up late some nights in the Pym archaeological camp with his parents, listening to stories by firelight. He felt a brief sadness and hoped his mother and father were all right; he wasn’t likely to get any word of them here on Ildira.
He took a deep breath and said, “Even before our civilization was recorded, storytellers chose to sit by bright fires, safe because dire wolves and cave bears and saber-tooths were afraid of the flames. Those storytellers would talk about great giants or monsters or predators that might snatch children from their mothers.” Anton smiled. “They also told tales of heroes, warriors, or mammoth hunters who were braver and stronger than anyone else. Tale spinners used stories to construct a framework of comprehensibility in a mysterious world. Stories formed our moral character.”
From the bluff above the sheltered inlet, Anton spotted sleek, dark figures swimming in from the open sea. Vao’sh looked out at the water. “It is a swimmer harvest crew returning with the changing tide.”
The Ildiran swimmer kithmen reminded Anton of lissome otters, delightfully resilient, who worked hard yet seemed to make it a game.
“Swimmers are covered with thin fur over an extra layer of subcutaneous fat to keep them warm in the cold, deep currents,” Vao’sh explained. “Note their large eyes. They have an extra lens membrane that allows them to see well underwater. The ears lie flat against smooth heads, and the noses are high on the face so they can swim with their nostrils above the water.”
“What are those baskets they’re towing behind them?”
“Swimmers harvest kelpweeds, shellfish, coral-eggs. Some of them herd schools of fish, culling them for food.”
“Oceanic cowboys.”
The rememberer’s face lobes flushed through a symphony of colors. “An apt analogy.” The bonfire continued to crackle and pop. “Swimmers live on large rafts tethered to the seafloor. As the fish schools move or as sections of the seaweed forest are picked clean, they cut the raft tethers and drift to other parts of the ocean.”
Anton shook his head. “I’ll never get used to so many kiths. How can you keep track