Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [578]
A more startling way of putting it would be to say that Gaia communicated directly with her lusty sister, the Original Beholder.
Of course it is speculation. Mankind cannot see into the greater umwelts about him. But he can train his ample senses to look for evidence. All the evidence suggests that Gaia and the Original Beholder made contact through their progeny’s projecting the link. One can only guess at the ripples of shock that contact caused – unless the second ice age and its ripples of remission provide evidence of that contact.
It is speculation that Gaia’s recovery was prompted by the refreshment of encountering a sister spirit in the void nearby.
There were the geonauts: serene, calm, apparently amiable, a new thing. They can be understood not as an evolutionary freak but as an inspiration born of a fresh and powerful friendship …
While on Helliconia, the august processes of the seasons were in undeniable stride.
In the northern hemisphere, small summer was nearly over. Frosty nights foretold colder nights ahead. In the winding passes of the Shivenink Chain, frost already ruled, and the living creatures who ventured there were subject to that rule.
It was morning. A screaming windstorm, the frigid breath from the pole. The supplies were being stacked away. The phagor and Uuundaamp were harnessing up their asokins. Seventeen days had elapsed since leaving Sharagatt. They had seen no sign that they were being pursued.
Of the three passengers Shokerandit had fared best. Toress Lahl had lapsed into speechlessness. She lay in the tent at night as if dead. Fashnalgid seldom spoke, except to curse. Their eyebrows and lashes were frosty white within a minute of leaving shelter, their cheekbones black with frostbite.
The last section of the trail ran above six thousand metres. To their right, in fuming cloud, was a solid mountain of ice. Visibility was down to a few feet.
Uuundaamp came to Shokerandit, eyes merry in his frosted face. ‘Today soft going,’ he shouted. ‘Downhill through tunnel. You ’member tunnel, chief?’
‘Noonat Tunnel?’ It was an effort to talk in the wind.
‘Yaya, Noonat. Tonight we be there. Takit drink, bit meal, occhara, gumtaa.’
‘Gumtaa. Toress tired.’
The Ondod shook his head. ‘She soon make meat together asokin. No much biwack gumtaa no more, eh?’ He laughed with closed mouth.
Shokerandit sensed the man had something more to say. Simultaneously they turned their backs on the others working at lashing up the sledge. Uuundaamp folded his arms.
‘Your friend got tail grow along face.’ One quick sly look from his profile.
‘Fashnalgid?’
‘Your friend got tail along face. Team no like him. Team give plenty kakool. Make bad time. We lose that sherb in Noonat Tunnel, ishto?’
‘Has he been molesting Moub?’
‘Mole sting? No, he stick him prodo up Moub las’ night again. Biwack the bag, ishto? She no like. She full baby Uuundaamps.’ He laughed. ‘So we lose in Tunnel, you see.’
‘I’m sorry, Uuundaamp. Loobiss for telling me – but no smrtaa in Tunnel, please. I speak him friend in Noonat. No more biwack your Moub.’
‘Chief, you better lose that friend. Else big kakool, I see.’ He laughed and scowled, tapping his forehead, then turned abruptly on his heel.
The Ondod rarely showed anger. But they were treacherous – that Shokerandit knew. Uuundaamp remained friendly; without at least an appearance of friendship, the journey could never be made; but he had lost face by telling a human of his wife’s disgrace.
Shokerandit had been invited to copulate with Moub. Such was Ondod courtesy, and Shokerandit would have offended by declining the invitation. But Fashnalgid had done it uninvited, and had broken Ondod law. Ondod laws were simple and stark; transgression meant death, smrtaa. Fashnalgid would be killed without compunction. If Uuundaamp had decided to lose Fashnalgid in Noonat Tunnel, Shokerandit’s plea would count for nothing.
Both Toress Lahl and Fashnalgid shot him curious looks