Already Among Us Read online

  It was Clem who managed to speak first. "River Man," he choked out.

  The thing turned to him, its stony eyes shining. "Griot. I enjoy your stories." Then, to Elizabeth: "But you. You confuse me. How can you cry like this?"

  Elizabeth wiped her eyes. "She was my friend."

  "Imaginary friends? Aren't you a little old for that?"

  A flash of anger touched the human's face. "Shut up! She was more of a friend than most of the people I know!"

  "Was she?"

  "Yes!" Elizabeth lowered her head. "Yes, she was. Now just...just go away...."

  Clem stared at her, then tried to open his mouth, to explain that she was distraught, that she didn't know what she was saying. But the River Man waved a watery paw, and Clem found he couldn't speak. He could only sit and watch as Elizabeth covered her eyes again.

  "Go away?" the River Man asked, crossing his arms. "But you came looking for me. You want to go home, don't you?"

  She looked up. "Can you? I mean, really?"

  "I don't see why not."

  "But," her eyes went to the body in her lap. "What about...what about her?"

  "Well, you can't take her with you." The River Man rubbed his snout. "I can swallow her body, if you like."

  "No!" Elizabeth jerked back and almost fell off the branch. "No, I mean, can't you...can't you...."

  "Bring her back?" He spread his paws. "I'm sorry, but only one impossiblity per customer."

  Elizabeth looked down at the body, then snapped her eyes over to Clem. "Clem! You could ask him!" She turned to the River Man. "Couldn't he--"

  "That's not his wish." A smile touched the River Man's trickling whiskers. "I already know the griot's wish, and anyway it's not his time to ask." He leveled a claw sharp as an icicle. "It's your time to ask, human, your time to decide." He crossed his arms again and stood, an impossible flex of river water, his stony eyes fixed on Elizabeth.

  She stared back, and the unnatural silence stretched long over Clem's ears. She looked for a while at Gherkin's body, starting to stiffen, water drizzling from the mouth and soaking into the fabric around her legs, then she looked up at the sky. At last, closing her eyes, she whispered, "I can't. I wish I could, but I can't." She opened her eyes slowly to the River Man. "Bring her back. Please bring her back."

  The River Man spread his liquid arms and began to melt back down toward the river's surface. Clem felt the bonds loosen around his snout, and was about to shout after the figure when Gherkin coughed and rolled over in Elizabeth's lap. Elizabeth gave a little cry, and with a flash of lightning and a blast of thunder, the clouds crashed back overhead, the river again roaring beneath the banyon tree. The sudden cold lashed into Clem, the rain against the leaves sounding as loud as the waterfalls far up river.

  "You're alive!" Elizabeth shouted; she grabbed the cat and hugged her to her chest. "You're alive!"

  Gherkin coughed and spat, struggling in the human's arms. "I won't be for long! Ease up, simian!" Elizabeth let her go, and the cat slid back into the human's lap. "Brains and eggs! What hit me?"

  Clem couldn't stop staring at the river, the river he had grown up beside, had spent his whole life traveling along; a sharp poke at his side brought him back to the tree branch. Gherkin was glaring at him. "Hey, cousin, what gives?"

  His tongue was too thick, his fur prickling against him like pins, and it was Elizabeth who spoke. "We thought you were dead. A flash flood knocked a hole in the barge; Clem and me, we didn't know, I mean, I saw you floating and I grabbed you and you weren't breathing and...and..." She shook her head quickly, water spraying from her topknot. "But you're all right now, aren't you?"

  Gherkin blinked at the human. "Yeah, I guess." She coughed again, and a shiver rattled through her fur. "A touch of pneumonia, I'm sure, but, yeah, I'm fine." She glanced at Clem. "You all right, cousin?"

  "I don't know," he managed to squeak at last. "I really don't know." The water roiled against the trunks of the banyon tree, and Clem thought he could see eyes peering up from the eddies.

  Then from up river a steam whistle blew, pulling Clem's attention away from the rapids below; he raised his head, and the Timiros's launch appeared around the bend. Clem could see a cable attached to the stern of the small boat, and Young Ephram was using the oars to steer a course down the middle of the flooding river; the whistle echoed through the jungle again as the boat came to a stop at the river's bend.

  "Ephram!" Clem shouted, and Elizabeth took up the call as well. Clem saw the rat shift in the boat, and a cry of "Ahoy there!" reached his ears.

  "Elizabeth," Clem said, "wave your arms; stand up so he can see the orange of your life vest."

  Gherkin stumbled out of Elizabeth's lap, and the human rose to her knees, grabbed hold of the branch above, and began waving and shouting. "Ephram! Down here! In the tree!"

  The rat's head twisted around, his paws still working the oars, and Clem saw his ears go up and his whiskers twitch when he finally turned enough to see them. He aimed several kicks at the cable lash-up on the stern; a whistle sounded from around the bend, and the boat began drifting with the flow again. Clem could hear the oars splash as Young Ephram worked the boat closer to the tree, the creak of the oar locks, the pant of Young Ephram's breath, and then the launch was sliding under their branch. Young Ephram gave the stern three swift kicks, and the boat stopped its slide down river.

  The rat was still sculling the oars, though, the boat shifting in the water like a kite on its string. "Hurry!" he called over the river's rush. "I'd rather not smash into these banyon trunks!"

  Elizabeth picked up Gherkin and lowered her into the boat; Clem gestured for her to go next, and he hopped into the stern after she was settled with the cat in the bow. Young Ephram gestured with his chin. "Look out there, Clem; I've gotta give the old man the signal."

  Clem nodded and managed to bunch himself to one end of the stern thwart; Young Ephram reared back and banged five times against the stern. Through the jungle came a blast of the barge's whistle, and the launch began sliding up river, Young Ephram hauling on the oars and moving them away from the tangle of tree tops poking above the flood waters.

  The rain pattered down as the launch was pulled around the bend. Clem could see Gherkin curled up in Elizabeth's lap, but her sides were moving this time, her paws and whiskers twitching slightly as she snuffled. And when he turned, there was the Timiros, still tied along the left bank of the Talia, Old Ephram standing with a paw on the winch controls. Metal stuck in jags from the port side of the cabin, but Clem was amazed at how many crates were still lashed in place.

  As they drew up behind the barge, Old Ephram called out, "My table! Did you see any sign of my table??"

  Young Ephram muttered something Clem couldn't hear, then shouted, "No! I think the piranhas got it!"

  Clem jerked a claw over his shoulder. "We rode it down as far as the bend there, but then it got away from us."

  "A fine thing," the old rat huffed as Clem lashed the boat to one of the tie up rings and Young Ephram shipped oars. "Well, you might as well come on back aboard. Nothing we can do now; we gotta get to Bentito before the real front hits."

  Clem was clambering up the three rung ladder that hung over the barge's stern; he stopped and stared at the rat. "The real front? That wasn't real enough for you?" He climbed onto the deck and took the towel Old Ephram held out.

  "It was real enough: took five of my crates and my new table, blast it. But it weren't the one we got warned about." He pointed down river. "That one's still coming."

  Clem looked back as Elizabeth stepped over the railing, Gherkin draped across her shoulders. The gray of the clouds deepened as they stretched west, just turning the deep black of one monster storm at the very edge of Clem's sight. He blinked at it, then turned back to Old Ephram. "But that won't even be to the coast yet."

  Old Ephram shrugged. "Like I said, that's the storm we got warned about." He turned his good eye toward Young Ephram coming over the rail. "Get that l
ine off, boy, and haul the launch back on board. I don't wanna be any nearer this river than Belzaire's tavern when that storm hits." He crooked a claw at Elizabeth. "Guess you all better ride in the pilot house where it's warm." He wrinkled his snout and spat into the river. "Can't stand folks in my pilot house...." He turned and stalked back along the deck.

  Clem heard Gherkin give a snort. "I hate earths where the rats are bigger'n me." She jumped down from Elizabeth's shoulder, took a few shaky steps, slipped and fell sideways. She blinked once, then started licking the fur along her flank. "Almost as much as I hate swimming."

  Elizabeth squatted down next to her. "I know what you mean. Let's just get out of here, okay?"

  "What?" The cat looked at her. "Betty, my girl--"

  "Don't call me that!"

  "Must I remind you that we are here at your demand to find this River Man and get you back home?"

  "River Man!" Elizabeth grimaced. "You heard Clem; it's just a legend. Didn't you say those robots sometimes have a few screws loose? Let's just go. We could wander around here for years and never find anything."

  A grin curled through Gherkin's whiskers. "Well, well. And here I'd heard that humans were untrainable. Could it be that our Betty is starting to get a brain?"

  "Shut up, Gherk. It's just that, well, this place..." She rubbed her upper arms. "It gives me the creeps. There's got to be something with better odds for success than stumbling through a jungle after a creature that doesn't exist."

  "Now you're talking." Gherkin rolled upright, wobbled a little, and quickly sat down. "I know some folks around the High Lonesome that might help. It's no picnic getting up there, and they can get sort of nasty themselves, but at least I've dealt with them before and gotten results." She looked at Clem. "Sorry, cousin; rivers just don't appeal to me."

  "I understand," Clem said, and the barge shuddered under his paws. "It often surprises even me. Shall we go inside?"

  "Amen to that." Gherkin staggered to her paws and slipped through the crates into the cabin.

  Elizabeth turned to follow, but Clem put a paw on her arm. "Why didn't you tell her? If she knew what you--"

  "Don't even think it!" she snapped, then she shook her head and put her furless paw over Clem's. "If she knew about this, she might start thinking, I don't know, that she owes me or something. And I don't want that. I don't want her pulling any punches." The smile was strange and sideways on her nearly flat face. "She keeps me on my toes, and that's kept me alive this far. So please, Clem, don't tell her."

  Clem couldn't help smiling. "But I'm a storyteller."

  She laughed. "Then just wait till we're gone, OK?" The engines throbbed to life, and the barge pulled away from the shore. Young Ephram grinned as he slid past to the winch. "Bentito in twenty minutes. Might as well go inside."

  "Thanks, Ephram." Clem turned to Elizabeth. "Go on; I'll be in in a minute."

  She patted his paw, then turned and went into the cabin. Clem watched her go, and he thought about earths full of humans, about earths ruled by machines and by monsters out far beyond the stars along the gliderumbles. The sky overhead seemed very small, then, the clouds just beyond his reach.

  But the river splashed against the barge, and Clem looked down at it, swirling, dark, and suddenly so very strange. He thought about the other stories he told around the fires in the towns and villages along the Talia: the Mothman, the Pygmy Shrews, the tales just as tall as the River Man stories. And that made him smile.

  Clem waved to the river, then turned and went into the cabin.

  Schurman's Trek

  Roland J. Green

  Another popular theme is the bioengineering of Earth animals into intelligence to help settle planets poorly suited for humans. In “Schurman’s Trek”, Dr. Roberta Schurman is a scientist working with bioengineered elephants to establish a “Hathi Project” colony on Logos, five hundred light-years from Earth. When Logos is attacked by the Hiver who are inimical to all intelligent life, Schurman and two other humans join with the two hundred Hathi they have been teaching in a cross-country trek to, they hope, safety. Green establishes a Hathi society, led by Clan-Mother Drini, that blends intelligence with instinctual elephant behavior.

  Day One

  From the Book of the Clan-Mother Drina:

  AT DARK-TIME LOSHA SAID THAT HER CALF WOULD COME WITHIN DAYS. I SAID THIS SEEMED TRUE BUT NOT TO WAKE THE CLAN-MOTHER ROBERTA OF THE SMALL ONES WITH THE NEWS. SHE WORRIED ABOUT EACH CALF AMONG US AS IF IT WERE HER OWN FIRST ONE.

  HALFWAY THROUGH THE DARK-TIME THE SKY-HOUSE OF THE SMALL ONES CAUGHT FIRE. WE COULD SEE IT BURNING ABOVE THE RED MOUNTAIN. WE ALSO SAW FIGHTING STARS OF BOTH THE SMALL ONES AND THEIR ENEMIES.

  FOR THIS, WE HAD TO WAKE THE CLAN-MOTHER. SHE AND I SPOKE TOGETHER FOR A DRINKING-TIME. SHE SAYS THE BURNING OF THE SKY-HOUSE IS BAD NEWS. SHE ALSO KNEW ABOUT LOSHA. PERHAPS WE DO NOT NEED TO BE SO CAREFUL OF FRIGHTENING THE CLAN-MOTHER OF THE SMALL ONES AS I THOUGH.

  I WILL SLEEP NOW. IT DOES NOT TAKE THE CLAN-MOTHER TO TELL ME THAT TOMORROW WILL BE A DAY OF MUCH WORK. IF I SLEEP, I WILL BE STRONG TO CALM THOSE YOUNG PEOPLE WHO CANNOT SLEEP FOR WORRYING.

  ROBERTA Schurman had lurched out of bed before the amber dawn of a northern Logos late-summer day touched the camp. She was only now reaching full wakefulness, as the cold water sluiced over her. She could have used a hot shower—this morning would probably be her last chance at one for weeks or months, maybe forever.

  Don't look on the dark side, she told herself. Paralyze your wits with pessimism, and you could help make this an irretrievable disaster. She was a scientist, not a soldier, but if the Second Hive War had come to Logos, then she had to do the best imitation of a soldier that she could.

  She had toweled herself dry and pulled on a robe before Nathan Kiombo came in with breakfast.

  “Greetings, Clan-Mother,” he said. His face was drawn, his tone sour, and his gestures as he put the plates down jerky and uncertain instead of his normal graceful precision.

  “Greetings, moran.” But then, her half of their morning ritual didn't come out sounding so great either.

  They ate in silence—synthetic eggs and bacon, muffins made from real wholemeal flour (even if ground to coarse Hathi standards), and strong tea. At least Kiombo hadn't lost his touch with the teapot. When he did, then it would be time for the skies of Logos to fall down on Hathis and humans alike.

  A number of Hathis drifted within sight of the camp during breakfast. They didn't seem to be moving any faster than usual, but there was an aimlessness about them that Schurman didn't like. Some of them were also obviously nervous. She saw one little head-bumping contest that had both young bulls doing full-scale threat displays before one of the matriarchs came over and broke up the argument.

  Hurled through time from five hundred years ago, one of Nate Kiombo's ancestors would at first glance have thought the Hathis were just another herd of elephants. Maybe a little smaller than he was used to (that was the Indian strain in their DNA) and certainly on the average much healthier looking, but elephants for all that.

  Then he would have noticed that they wore metal caps on their tusks, and leather harnesses around their bodies. Some of them had metal-capped teeth as well, or braces on their legs and pads on their feet. One even wore a broad-brimmed hat, to shade her head from the sun.

  He would have concluded, perhaps correctly, that these elephants were either the gods of the elephant people, or humans who could change into elephants. Potent magic, either way.

  Potent magic indeed, and Roberta Schurman wasn't sure if it was good or bad. Genetic engineering a hundred years ago had created the Hathis, a mixture of elephant stocks with their intelligence augmented so that they had a language intelligible to humans and the ability to use a variety of simple tools. A thousand years before that, on a distant and then unknown world, the same knowledge had created the Hivers, fierce, formidable, and compulsively xenophobic towards all other intelligent life forms.

  More magic—the Stoneman D
rive, which had brought both humans and Hathis to Logos, five hundred light-years from Earth. Five hundred light-years in the opposite direction from the Hivers, or so Roberta Schurman had thought until last night. Then the Hivers' equivalent of the Stoneman Drive brought at least one of their ships—a cruiser, she thought—howling into orbit around Logos. The space station was gone, the Navy auxiliaries attached to it destroyed or fled, and the cruiser still there.

  Still there, and maybe deploying a satellite network to watch what happened on the ground. She hadn't seen any indications of attacks on ground targets or landings. But the only major ground target was Academy, and it would take a much bigger fuser than even the Hivers would use on a city of fifty thousand people to be visible from two thousand kilometers away. A raider also might not have the ground-trained Warriors aboard, or the time to land them if she did.

  If the Hathis could get under cover of the Rubin River Forest before they were sighted and recognized as intelligent beings, they might survive. If the Federation Navy came back to chase the cruiser away—and if they didn't, with Logos so deep in Federation space that the Hivers shouldn't have been there in the first place--