“And let’s be fair about this,” said Val. “We’re meeting another sentient species. Why should humans be the only ones represented? Why not a pequenino? Why not a hive queen — or at least a worker?”
“Especially a worker,” said Miro. “If we are stuck here, having a worker with us would enable us to communicate with Lusitania — ansible or not, Jane or not, messages could –”
“All right,” said Jane. “You’ve persuaded me. Even though the last-minute flurry with the Starways Congress tells me they’re about to shut down the ansible network at any moment.”
“We’ll hurry,” said Miro. “We’ll make them all rush to get the right people aboard.”
“And the right supplies,” said Val. “And –”
“So start doing it,” said Jane. “You just disappeared from your orbit around the descolada planet. And I did broadcast a small fragment of the descolada. One of the sections that Quara pegged as language, but the one that was least altered during mutations as the descolada tried to fight with humans. It should be enough to let them know which of their probes reached us.”
“Oh, good, so they can launch a fleet,” said Miro.
“The way things are going,” said Jane dryly, “by the time any fleet they send could get anywhere at all, Lusitania is the safest address they could have. Because it won’t exist anymore.”
“You’re so cheerful,” said Miro. “I’ll be back in an hour with the people. Val, you get the supplies we’ll need.”
“For how long?”
“Get as much as will fit,” said Miro. “As someone once said, life is a suicide mission. We have no idea how long we’ll be trapped there, so we can’t possibly know how much is enough.” He opened the door of the starship and stepped out onto the landing field near Milagre.
CHAPTER 7
“I OFFER HER THIS POOR OLD VESSEL”
[Image]
“How do we remember?
Is the brain a jar that holds our memories?
Then when we die, does the jar break?
Are our memories spilled on the ground
and lost?
Or is the brain a map
that leads down twisted paths
and into hidden corners?
Then when we die, the map is lost
but perhaps some explorer
could wander through that strange landscape
and find out the hiding places
of our misplaced memories.”
from The God Whispers of Han Qing-jao
The seagoing canoe glided toward the shore. At first and for the longest time, it seemed hardly to be moving at all, so slowly did it come closer, the rowers rising higher and looking just a little larger each time Wang-mu could see them over the waves. Then, near the end of the voyage, the canoe suddenly seemed huge, it seemed abruptly to speed up, to lunge through the sea, to leap toward shore with each wave; and even though Wang-mu knew that it was going no faster now than before, she wanted to cry out for them to slow down, to be careful, the canoe was going too quickly to be controlled, it would be dashed to bits against the beach.
At last the canoe breasted the last breaking wave and the nose of it slid into sand under the rushing shorewater and the rowers jumped out and dragged the canoe like a child’s limp doll up the beach to the high-tide line.
When the canoe was on dry sand, an older man arose slowly from his seat amidships. Malu, thought Wang-mu. She had expected him to be wizened and shrunken like old men on Path, who, bent with age, curved like prawns over their walking sticks. But Malu was as erect as any of the young men, and his body was still massive, broad of shoulder and thick with muscle and fat like any of the younger men. If it were not for a few more decorations in his costume and the whiteness of his hair, he would have been indistinguishable from the rowers.
As she watched these large men, she realized that they did not move like fat people she had known before. Nor did Grace Drinker, she remembered now. There was a stateliness to their movements, a grandeur like the motion of continents, like icebergs moving across the face of the sea; yes, like icebergs, moving as if three-fifths of their vast bulk were invisible underground, pushing through earth like an iceberg through the sea as they drifted along above. All the rowers moved with vast gracefulness, and yet all of them seemed as busy as hummingbirds, as frantic as bats, compared to the dignity of Malu. Yet dignity was not something he put on, it was not a faзade, an impression he was trying to create. Rather it was that he moved in perfect harmony with his surroundings. He had found the right speed for his steps, the right tempo for his arms to swing as he walked. He vibrated in consonance with the deep, slow rhythms of the earth. I am seeing how a giant walks the earth, thought Wang-mu. For the first time in my life, I have seen a man who in his body shows greatness.