REACHING THE COAST

1544 4D

The morning came sunny and clear. Andrew, staring at the increasingly-hilly land passing by, recalled the sensi report on a gang sentenced to exile on Harvath, the land west of the sea they were now approaching; the news jock had called it a sentence of slow death.

Beyond Muathen‘s western reaches lay a body of water which to the first explorers had appeared to be a long north-south lake with a fat bulge in the middle. Its salty content and its direct connection at both ends to larger polar salt seas helped give it its name: the Little Ocean.

On the far side of the Little Ocean lay Harvath, called on the sensi reports the Desolation. Over the first five millenia after the Colonization, human civilizations had poisoned Harvath‘s soil, water and air so thoroughly that in spite of continual efforts to strengthen and replenish the stocks of bioforms of all types, the continent had still not recovered diverse ecosystems in the five thousand years since its last animals had died.

The morning wore on; the militia train began a gentle descent as it wound west through steeper slopes patched with low groves of gnarled lycopods, green-thatched and brown-streaked, their tough woody trunks knotted together against punishing autumn winds that funneled up from the coastal gorges. According to the City sensi stories, the people here called these plants chisernari. Andrew formed the word with his lips.

The tracks ran high along the side of one of the deep almost-fjords; not far from the coast, the train stopped at a large tan-timbered station with a deeply-sloped black ceramic tile roof overhanging the platform.

“Out for Purusil,” the announcement came. “Regroup in the station under the left arch.”

Andrew and Alliji stepped out together onto the solid wood platform. Piping cries filled the air. In the tangled chisernari grove nearest the station, riaviti birds flitted and perched and postured, chattering and singing.

Alliji pointed at one clump of jostling birds. “These came from early gene engineering. It was supposed to improve the hardiness of the native flyers.”

“But these are birds, with feathers,” Andrew said, pointing.

“Well, over a few thousand years, the bird genes spread through some of the flyer lines, so they got feathers and egg incubation, and… listen to the songs!”

Red-and-black, blue-and-black, white-and-red-and-purple, and almost any other color combination, flashed and spattered among the chisernari tangles. Riots of music gushed in the air.

Alliji‘s eyes widened. “There must be at least twenty-five species here.”

Andrew listened, amazed, hearing snatches of melody everywhere. His eyes wandered to the train station; there seemed to be many more people in it than the arrival of their train, on the one track, would justify. Something about the people nagged at him. “Let’s get to our area.”

The station was not what it seemed. They entered its major room; huge timber joists threw barred shadows against a dark-painted cathedral-style ceiling. At the center of the room a circle on the floor traced the flat end-on outline of a helift: a pair of concentric helices descending into the earth. An endless belt wound up the inner helix, drawing with it a train of stepped platforms on which rode people, andros, freight; the belt moved outward from the circle’s center at the top to draw the platforms back down again into the depths along the outer helix.

Each helift platform was made of interlocking lattices that adjusted its profile for the changing helical radius as it moved from the inner ascending track to the outer descending one. These helifts ran between major levels only. Upward from an open shaft at the center of the helix poured a straight gush of brilliant light.

This was the chief entrance to Purusil, the westernmost city of Muathen, and one of the smaller subsurface cities.

“This is like a vacation,” Andrew said to Alliji, as they stared and tried to absorb it all. “It’s beautiful. Just the birds--“

“We’ve got four hours here,” Mentrius called. Then we’re headed south.”

“What’s south of here?” someone asked him.

“You’re going to learn some mountaineering,” said Yuss, coming over from another knot of soldiers. “We’re doing a climb on the Great South Fall. You’re all City guys, and you know the old stairs there, so this shouldn’t bother you.” He smiled broadly.

“Will there be more action?” Another voice.

“After Abridor, you want more fighting?” Yuss asked, his smile gone. “This was supposed to be training. We’re not out to kill you.”

“What about the aliens?” The speaker was Hings-Wen.

“What aliens?” Yuss focused his gaze on the Hau Ren soldier.

“Oh, that’s right.” Hings-Wen grinned. “I guess I mistook that guy who ripped Franks’s head off for something else.”

“Yeah, the guy who ate Monrote‘s--“

“That’s enough!” Yuss cut them all off with a sharp chop of his hand. He looked around; a few civilians passing by had paused, but now they hurried away. “Like Adrili said, you’ve got four hours to relax here; just be back on board on time. Damn it, keep your mouths shut around here about us. That’s an order. Got it?” He waited until he seemed satisfied at the nods he was getting. Then he walked away.

Andrew turned to Alliji. “Let’s scan out a few levels here.”

A sign at the top of the helift read:

PURUSIL

ELEVATION 1205 METERS

They stepped onto a platform and rode down to the first major level below the surface. Andrew blinked as a gold-and-green streak passed his face: another bird. This space was almost identical to the station level, replete with knotted chisernari; the riaviti birds nested, fought, mated, and sang in their green tangles.

Alliji reached up and touched a hanging frond of pale jade with a fingertip.

“It’s like in the City, but thicker,” Andrew said. “The fronds must regulate the humidity and mix of gases in the air.” Woven art, hugely knotted and wound, heavy and light, in browns and blue-greens, dangled and drifted from the high-arched ceilings. Everyone moved more slowly than in the City; soft drowsy music hummed sweet and wistful among the jungle of plants and fibers. Andrew and Alliji walked slowly over to a long, carved, wooden seat about three steps out from the helift.

“Some ‘thellin would be so good right now,” Alliji sighed, flopping down onto the seat. “Just about two tweaks of it, and then a good ride with a nice little lady.” He closed his eyes and sprawled back to look up across the helift shaft.

Andrew sat beside him. “Don’t you have a woman? I thought you and Terrisana were locked.” Some fluttering above them drew his eyes; a purple male riaviti mounted a pale-rose female, and then flew away.

“Yeah, we are. I wish she could be here.”

Andrew nodded. It would be so good to share this with Leil, if they could ever get out of the Zone and maybe out to the surface, and then maybe… he let his body settle, and listened to the birdsong. It was almost like anjive, the way the andros talked to each other: high-pitched, musical, percussive, lyrical.

Andros. He sat up, looked around. That was what was unusual here — there were a lot of andros here, moving in twos and threes, talking, laughing; they weren’t preoccupied or wearing that ‘I’m on somebody’s mission’ look he knew so well from the City.

He nudged Alliji. “See anything odd? The andros here act just like people.”

“Yeah. I’d heard this is the base of the Sinantro and Incarnastar colls. They’re the most sympathetic to andros, so things must be more free here.”

A group of six andros, three men and three women, had gathered near a pillar between two shops, about four good strides from where Andrew and Alliji sat. Tall, lean and intensely attractive, these andros wore clinging bodysuits of dark green; their hair tumbled long over their shoulders.

One woman flicked a hand up, waved a few finger-signs at the others. Their mouths began to form words, but no sound came at first; then the riaviti birds fell silent at once. Andrew realized that they were singing in the upper registers of anjive, outside human hearing range.

Coming in over the soft croon of the level’s ambient music, the andros' voices descended a stair of fleeting, fading notes, weaving and spreading into many voices, several for each singer, now flutelike, now oboe-rich, now languaged and piercing. A few passers-by paused, then went on; Andrew and Alliji sat entranced.

Soon the whole space around the helift was full with interlocking melodies that counterpointed and chased each other, reveled, leaped, glided as if to teach the birds themselves how to fly with their voices alone. Andrew stared at the andros, his mouth open, his heart racing, then slowing. He had never heard anything like this.

One man and one woman of the group, still singing, stepped out in front of the others. The man flipped a small silvery object to the woman: a coin; she sent it flying back to him, adding another in rhythm to the singing. Soon Andrew lost count of the coins.

A man in Sinantro silver-gray and dark green passed the group, and tossed a coin to the woman. Without breaking the beat, she added it to the collection the two were juggling.

Andrew found a ten-piece in his thigh pack, and lobbed it to the juggling man. A split second later it came flying back to him; both the man and the woman, their hands still flying, shook their heads at him.

“Not good enough,” Alliji chuckled. “Let’s see if this works.” He threw a twenty-piece to the woman, who nodded and added it to the flashing array.

“Okay.” Andrew exchanged the ten for a twenty, and made his donation. Now the jugglers smiled, and ended their appeal by flinging the whole arc of coins high in the air. As the coins fell, the two turned around, pulled open their collars, and let the coins fall down their backs to their waists, clinking and jingling into pouches inside their suits.

The song went on for a few moments more, then climbed out of hearing range; as it ended, the riaviti birds began again to sing. The group bowed deep to Andrew and Alliji, and walked away down one of Purusil‘s underground avenues.

“Amazing,” Andrew breathed, looking after them. “Wait!” he called out; the woman stopped and turned to stare levelly at him with large blue-violet eyes. He hurried over to her. “What was that song about?”

“Why do you want to know?” she asked him, her expression stony.

Irritated by her unexpected resistance, he snapped, “Because I asked you. It was beautiful, and I wanted to know more.”

Her juggling partner joined them. “You’re from Gran Dar, aren’t you? That’s their uniform.”

“I thought I was asking a question. Now I’m getting questioned.” Andros never acted this way in the City. Andrew‘s annoyance took control. “Forget it.” He started to turn back to where Alliji was still sitting.

“You’re not used to reps acting like real people, are you, soldier?” The woman’s voice, even and clear, made him stop and face her again.

The ugly word ‘rep’, for ‘andro', upset him, coming from her the way it had. He wanted to order them away from him, but he took a breath instead. “No,” he said, wondering what they would do; his reflexes worked, and he came to balance.

Three Incarnastar women in violet and pale gray bodysuits, their eyes wide, whispered not far away.

The andro woman took a step back. “No one wants trouble, soldier,” she said. “Just mutual respect.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, still tense.

“We have strong feelings about that song,” she said. “No one here asks about it because they all know. I was surprised when you asked, because Gran Dar people don’t care about andro music. And we don’t talk about it.”

Andrew thought for a heartbeat. “It was beautiful, and sad. It made me feel the sadness, and something else, I don’t know.”

Alliji came up beside him. “It was the same for me. I thought about my brother who just died.”

The woman looked at both of them intently with deep-violet eyes. “Then you know about losing life when you’re young, don’t you?”

Andrew remembered Nurumin, and Gej, and his brothers Drin and Chanzar, and many others. “Yes.”

“Yes,” said Alliji beside him.

“That is what this song was about: a young man who discovered he was to die. His name was Hyonarsa. The only reason he had to die was that he was an andro. But he found a way to stay alive. Then he learned that to keep living, he would have to die many times. It’s a song we keep alive, even though we die young.

“The song lives and dies, and lives again, just the way Hyonarsa did. Since we die and we don’t return, and we have no descendants, we send our singing down through time.”

Andrew and Alliji looked at each other, and then at the woman. “Thank you,” Andrew said, and he looked down at the floor tiles. “Forgive me for acting rude. My name is Andrew.”

The woman reached out and took his hand in hers. Her fingers were cool. “Thank you for asking, and staying to hear the answer. I am called Joimia. You were afraid, but you stayed.”

“I was,” Andrew said, looking in her deep eyes; now he began to understand a little the strength Leil always had. “I hope I’ll hear you sing again.”

“Come again to Purusil.” She smiled now, and turned with her partner to join the others and continue along the understreet.