Last Shadow (9781250252135) Read online

  Father took a moment to find where she had gone.

  Not being a fool, and, more importantly, not wishing to seem a fool, he said nothing to show his consternation and, quite likely, fear. “Quite a trick you’ve learned,” said Father, eventually. “Or did Jane do that for you?”

  Thulium knew Father well enough to know that her ability to dodge away from him would not be enough. She didn’t want to be at war with him, so that meant she had to win that war immediately and completely.

  So Thulium took herself and Father Outside and In, and this time brought him to the place on the riverbank across from the entrance to the hive house, and within sight of the fields being worked by Formic laborers.

  Father looked a bit dizzy—but he had been transported before. He understood what had happened.

  But the fact that she could carry him with her wasn’t her entire point. She looked out toward the laboring Formics. So did Father.

  “Everybody thinks they were all destroyed,” he said.

  “Everybody is supposed to think that. But Ender Wiggin brought her here in her cocoon and reestablished her. They’re growing the food that feeds many worlds. Small populations, but still—the Hive Queen is our ally now.”

  “Who is this ‘our’ whose ally she is?” asked Father.

  “Those of us working on the descolada problem. And visiting the world of Nest to help with our study.”

  “I have just forbidden anyone to—”

  “I have just shown you how useless it is for you to forbid anyone. You’re my father, and I love you, but I am a full member of this research team, and I have the power to go wherever in the universe I choose. Forbidding me to do this will only make you look foolish. And if you try to interfere with my work, I’ll send you back to Nokonoshima for you to work things out with my mother.”

  “Don’t make threats you can’t—”

  Finding the location of Nokonoshima in Father himself—not his memory, not his mind, but, Thulium could only suppose, his aiúa—Thulium took him there, and then immediately returned herself to Lusitania, where the others were still gathered. “Father is stubborn,” said Thulium.

  “It takes multiple demonstrations?” asked Sprout.

  “Is that really you causing this jumping around?” asked Uncle Andrew.

  “It’s her all right,” said Sprout.

  Thulium noticed that he did not even hint that he, too, could do the same stunts. Well, keep it hidden, Sprout, she thought. I won’t tell.

  “But it’s time to bring him back,” said Thulium.

  This time she didn’t go herself. Since she knew where he was, she merely caught hold of him, brought him through the Outside, and set him just a few steps away from the others.

  Father looked calm, because that’s how he always wanted to look, especially when he was frightened or awed. Instead of speaking to Thulium at all, he looked to Sprout and Blue. “Jane brought us back here. Was there any purpose in it? Is there work for us to do? Or should we try to conceive more children, since the ones we already have are now severed from our parental care?”

  Thulium knew that now was the time to speak. “Father, you are not severed from anything, beyond what you did yourself during our lives on the Herodotus. All of us lived in terror of you—and of the twins, to whom you were absurdly indulgent. So stop looking for someone else, some adult, to blame and punish for alienating my affection. There is no such person. Except yourself. You alienated my trust and affection and you’ve spent my whole life doing it. You kidnapped me away from my mother and taught me to do anything to avoid provoking your rage. So if you want to return to a fatherly role toward me, you need to spend a little time figuring out just how a loving father talks to his very independent daughter, and shows his affection for and trust in her. Then act out that part as best you can until you actually mean it.”

  “You think I don’t love you? Or respect you?” asked Father.

  “I think the menacing tone you were trying to conceal, and failing, is your own answer. I think if you do love me, you’ve hidden it from yourself so it won’t interfere with this hyper-manly show you are always putting on in order to bully and dominate your siblings and the cousins.”

  “You talk to me this way, while asking me to love you?”

  “I’m not asking you to love me,” said Thulium. “I personally believe that you can’t. I only said that until you show me love and respect, you will have no further influence or authority over me. I said it in front of witnesses so there can be no mistake. Now go to bed.”

  And with that she transported Father to his assigned room in the compound.

  Carlotta turned to Sprout. “Is it your turn now to make that speech to me?”

  “Have you ever treated me as Uncle Sergeant treats Thulium?” asked Sprout.

  “I hope not,” said Aunt Carlotta.

  Sprout hugged her. And Yuuto placed a hand on Sprout’s head. Sprout raised a hand to lay on top of his father’s hand. “Welcome, sir. I would say ‘welcome home,’ but this isn’t your home, and it isn’t our home. But it’s where we’re working for now, so … I’m glad you’re here.”

  “And I’m glad to meet you, Brussels,” said Yuuto.

  “When you have time,” said Sprout, “I have a very funny vid to show you.”

  “I hope it will include the time that birds pooped and peed on you,” said Yuuto.

  “Remind me not to be there,” said Aunt Carlotta. “I don’t think I want to see.”

  “Oh, you do,” said Thulium. “Because Sprout was extraordinary. He was great.”

  And Sprout’s smile told her that if their friendship had been damaged when he stayed behind on Nest, it was healing well.

  19

  Thulium: After three thousand years or so, their population must be in the tens of millions. Hundreds of millions.

  Sprout: Or they control their own reproductive rate.

  Thulium: Or they don’t all live underground.

  Sprout: We know that. The Yachachiyruna are partly underground and partly in the forest.

  Thulium: So let’s say the Folk really do live underground except at harvest time and planting time. They didn’t always. They must have begun their colony on the surface where the sun shines.

  Sprout: Probably.

  Thulium: Why did they make the move underground?

  Sprout: I bet you think you know.

  Thulium: They found out that the ravens and keas couldn’t share the surface world with humans. The Yachachiyruna were fine—I think they’re the ones that have educated ravens and keas so well in human languages and history and all. But the only way to keep the peace was for the humans to live as far as they could from the mischief of the keas.

  Sprout: They’re just playing.

  Thulium: Savagely and selfishly. So the Folk gave up the surface, except for crops, and underground they set up a water and sewer and ventilation system and then carved out whatever they needed. The birds couldn’t thrive down there—nothing for them to eat, and they need room to fly. So the birds live on the surface, and the Engineers swing around in the trees, and you can’t tell me that there isn’t a substantial group down below who deeply resent the bargain their ancestors made and are agitating to return to the surface, which would mean war. And now you and Peter and Wang-Mu make friends with the ravens and keas and the Engineers, and you’ve set us up as allies of one side and foes of the other.

  Sprout: For reasoning based on guesses based on hypotheses based on doubtful premises, you’ve built a pretty elaborate structure.

  Thulium: We need to meet with the Folk. And we shouldn’t be led to them by the surface dwellers. We should go straight down. Appear among them without intermediaries.

  Sprout: Because people always trust visitors who magically appear in their house.

  —Conversation: Thulium and Sprout quoted in Plikt, Leguminidae

  Peter and Wang-Mu arrived in the meadow near the Council trees, and in a few moments a raven dropped down
into the grass.

  “Are you Phoenix? Or Dog? Or some raven we haven’t talked with before?”

  The bird flew up to Wang-Mu’s shoulder. “Greetings, Royal Mother of the West.”

  “Well, we know you’re not Royal Son,” said Wang-Mu.

  “So at least you can tell keas from ravens.”

  Peter decided it was time for him to speak up. “We can tell corvids from parrots, and we can tell hawks from vultures.”

  “We have no vultures in our world,” said Dog, for Peter now recognized her voice and style of speech.

  “Do the Folk underground still have the frozen embryos of falcons and other predatory birds?” asked Peter.

  “Why would you want to know?” asked Dog.

  “They have obviously been selective about what Earth species they introduced into this world. I think part of your understanding with them is that they will never introduce more predatory birds into the Nest,” said Peter.

  “We fear brood parasites far more than flying predators. We can deal with hawks and falcons, but brood parasites attack us in the nest, killing our own babies so we’ll raise theirs.”

  “I can’t imagine that ravens or keas would be fooled,” said Peter.

  “We are the birds who speak with humans,” said Dog. “We have to speak for all the birds, and try to keep them safe.”

  “Do they appreciate your intervention on their behalf?” asked Peter. He could feel Wang-Mu growing more anxious. He was treading in perilous territory now, he knew.

  “Those that understand, yes,” said Dog. “But what difference would it make if they were all ungrateful to us? They still need us, and we will still stand for them.”

  “Because there is a history of conflict between humans and birds,” said Peter.

  Silence.

  Dog flew off Wang-Mu’s shoulder and disappeared in the trees.

  Peter immediately lay down in the grass. “It’s a little damp,” he said. “Either a heavy dew this morning or it rained last night.”

  “Not afraid of damp,” said Wang-Mu, lying down close by. They knew Dog might be three minutes or three hours in her conversation with the Council, and they didn’t want to wear themselves out with standing around uselessly.

  “I’m betting,” said Wang-Mu, “that you have now proven Thulium’s theory.”

  Peter said, “One of her guesses. It doesn’t rise to the level of a—”

  “The separation of sentient species did not arise out of mutual convenience. It arose as a way of settling either a war or a chronic conflict that everyone feared might turn into war.”

  “That’s what I think we’re confirming here,” said Peter.

  “And what difference will it make, knowing that?” asked Wang-Mu.

  “It’s easier to make good decisions when you have more information,” said Peter.

  “And you think Thulium may be paranoid and overly suspicious, but she also might be right,” said Wang-Mu.

  “She may be little, but she’s smart,” said Peter.

  “When we know almost nothing except by rumor,” said Wang-Mu, “our guesses are neither smart nor dumb. What’s dumb is to trust those guesses and take irrevocable actions based on them.”

  “But taking no action at all is also dumb.”

  “The great human dilemma,” said Wang-Mu. “We always act, or fail to act, based on insufficient information. And yet we muddle through, recovering from our mistakes as best we can.”

  “Quote from Han Fei-Tzu?”

  “No,” said Wang-Mu. “I think I was quoting you.”

  “Ah,” said Peter. “No wonder it sounded so wise to me.”

  “If it sounds wise, I must be quoting someone?” asked Wang-Mu.

  “If you want to take offense,” said Peter, “then it doesn’t matter what I actually say.”

  At which point, a raven fluttered over them and landed on Peter’s knee, which happened to be upraised at the moment. “Yes,” said Dog. “In the second century of the colony, some humans were so furious with the kea that they started making traps for them and caging them where they could do no harm to humans’ projects. When the ravens saw it, and heard the grieving of the free keas, the ravens declared a relentless guerrilla war against the village of humans who had done this thing.”

  “Guerrilla war?” asked Peter.

  “We carry no weapons but our talons and beaks,” said Dog. “But we are as good at mobbing our enemies as the keas and crows. The humans could go nowhere, do nothing out in the open without constant bombardment, pecking, tearing. Everything they built we broke or weakened. And when that proved not to be enough, we began pecking at their faces, tearing their ears, causing them to bleed down over their eyes. We never blinded any of them, though we could have. We wanted this to be a war whose scars might heal.”

  “How did they fight you?” asked Wang-Mu.

  “They tried to swat us out of the air. They reinvented the bow and arrow, but they were horrible marksmen. To avoid us, many of them in that village took refuge underground. We were content to let them escape us that way, as long as they weren’t out where they could be annoyed by the keas.”

  “Then what?” asked Wang-Mu.

  “We opened the cages and set the keas free,” said Dog. “That was the foundation of our alliance.”

  “Peace ever since?” asked Wang-Mu.

  “Every few centuries, some group of humans gets on about taking back the surface, with slogans like, ‘We made them smart, now make them obedient.’”

  “Ah,” said Peter. “They acted and talked like humans.”

  “But they didn’t make us smart,” said Dog. “We made ourselves smart, during the voyage and after, when we controlled our mating and child-rearing.”

  “Slogans don’t have to be accurate to be effective,” said Peter.

  “Why does this matter to you?” asked Dog. “It’s all history.”

  “One member of our team suggested that the longer we wait to meet the Folk underground, the more suspicious of us they might become,” said Wang-Mu. “If any of them feel resentment against ravens and keas, won’t they mistrust us as allies of the birds?”

  “Do you really think,” asked Dog, “that after the way your craft appeared in our sky and hopped around instantaneously, and after you appeared on the surface without any kind of craft at all, they would mistrust you because you were friends with us?”

  “Fair point,” said Peter.

  “I have seen your home planet, Lusitania,” said Dog. “I already reported to the Yachachiyruna that your level of technology on the planet’s surface is not superior to our own. Only your means of travel.”

  “That’s true enough, on Lusitania,” said Peter. “But you met the Hive Queen. She has all the memories of her species. She knows how to build extraordinary starships and death-dealing surface weapons. She knows how to burn your planet to cinders. She will not do it, but don’t judge our technological capabilities solely on the basis of what we have on hand. If it came to war, nobody wages more terrible war than the Formics.”

  “Except the humans,” said Dog.

  “Well,” said Peter, “that goes without saying.”

  “Your war would not be against birds, but against humans,” said Dog.

  “There is no war,” said Wang-Mu. “There will be no war. Because we will not raise any weapons against you, and if you raise a weapon against us, we’ll simply go away.”

  Dog walked on Peter’s knee, circling while thinking of what to say, it seemed. Her claws bit through the fabric into the skin of Peter’s knee, causing tiny stabs of pain. Yet her movements also tickled him so he wanted to laugh and complain at the same time.

  “I have an idea,” said Dog. “Take whatever samples you can gather in the next couple of hours, and then leave. Go back to your planet. Take your box out of our sky. And then forget that you know of the existence of Nest.”

  Peter thought: That may be the wisest advice we’ll ever get.

  And
he also thought: We haven’t yet learned enough about the descolada.

  Or do we have enough data now that if we left Nest completely, we could work out the descolada’s mysteries on our own?

  “It is not our decision to make,” said Wang-Mu.

  “When you say that,” said Dog, “you mean that you, Royal Mother of the West, and your husband, Peter Wiggin the Second of That Name, cannot make the decision about your future course of action without winning the consent of the other members of your team.”

  “Yes,” said Peter. “As you also need to consult the Council of Ravens.”

  “But Peter Wiggin,” said Dog, “will you advocate for your leaving Nest and never coming back?”

  “I will tell them your proposal, and I will rehearse for them all of the arguments in its favor.”

  “But also the arguments against it?” asked Dog.

  “He won’t have to do that,” said Wang-Mu. “The others will unite to present those counter-arguments, and they will overwhelmingly decide to come to Nest and meet with the underground Folk.”

  “Don’t come with them,” said Dog.

  Peter felt Wang-Mu preparing to speak, and he knew she wanted to say what he wanted to say: Why not? But he touched his hand to her hand, and they both said nothing. Peter felt that Dog was giving them a warning, but that she could not be more explicit than she already had been. She was advising them to stay away for their own good. She was warning them that if they went down to meet with the Folk in their underground lairs, it would come to no good.

  And yet the descolada researchers would come again, and go underground, and whatever dire consequence Dog foresaw would happen.

  All I need to do, said Peter, is to stay on Lusitania with my wife and my gestating child. Let the others go without me. I’m not their leader—I’m not a leader of any kind, not even to Wang-Mu. They don’t need me. If we stay behind, we will be safe.

  That’s what I’m going to do, he decided. I’m going to stay on Lusitania when everybody else overrules us and comes back down here.

  Now the question is, will Wang-Mu stay with me? Or will she decide to put our child at risk by joining the expedition?