He heaved himself up and went to find something to drink. Rillibee rose from his chair beside Roald. “You know everything I do, Elder Few. I must get back to the others. I can’t stay here.” He yawned again, thinking briefly of asking Tony to come back with him. No. Tony would want to stay until they knew something more about Stella. As for Sylvan—better that Sylvan stayed here. Marjorie hadn’t wanted him back.
He went out of the place, still yawning, breaking into a staggering jog that carried him down the slope to the place the foxen waited. Something dragged at him. insisting upon his return. Perhaps the trees. Perhaps something more. Some need or purpose awaited him among the trees. If nothing else, then he would carry the news of the bon Damfels girl and of Rigo’s injuries and of all that both those events implied.
In the room he left behind, the doctor and the two madams were trying to figure out why a naked, mindless girl should have been trying to get into a freighter. “Why was she carrying a dried bat? What does that mean?” Dr. Bergrem demanded of the group at large.
“Hippae,” said Sylvan as he wandered by. “Hippae kick dried bats at each other. There are dried bats in Hippae caverns.”
Now they were looking at him. Now, suddenly, he wasn’t mute anymore. He explained, “It’s a gesture of contempt, that’s all. That’s how the Hippae express contempt for one another, part of the challenge. Or at the end of a bout, to reinforce defeat, they kick dead bats at each other. A way of saying, ‘You’re vermin.’ “
Lees Bergrem nodded. “I’ve heard that. Heard that the Hippae have a lot of symbolic behaviors. ..”
Feeling foolishly grateful for their attention, Sylvan told them what little more he had learned about the Hippae when he was a child, wishing Mainoa were there to tell them more.
Midmorning found Mainoa with Marjorie and Father James on the spacious open platform of the Tree City. Brother Mainoa had been studying the material recorded in his tell-me link while Marjorie had explored and Father James had tried to talk to foxen, thanking God that he was present rather than Father Sandoval. Father Sandoval had no patience with the idea that there might be other intelligent races. Father James wondered what the Pope in Exile would think of the whole idea.
Marjorie hadn’t tried to speak to the foxen. From time to time He had reached out and said something to her. She had accepted these bits of information, trying to keep her face from showing what happened to her each time He spoke, a fire along her nerves, an ecstatic surge, taste, smell, something. Now the three humans sat face to face, trying to put bits and pieces of knowledge and hypothesis together.
“The Arbai had machines that transported them,” Marjorie said. She had finally understood that. “That thing on the dais in the center of town? That was really a transport machine. Machines like that moved the Arbai from one place to another.”
Brother Mainoa sighed and rubbed his head. “I think you’re right, Marjorie. Let’s see, what have I picked up in the last few hours? There’s been another message from Semling.” He took out the tell-me and put it at the center of their space, tapping it with one hand.
“On the theory that things written immediately before the tragedy might be of most use to us, Semling put a high priority on translating a handwritten book I found in one of the houses some time ago. They’ve translated about eighty percent of it. It seems to be a diary. It gives an account of the author trying to teach a Hippae to write. The Hippae became frustrated and furious and killed two Arbai who were nearby. When the Hippae calmed down, the author remonstrated with it. He or she explained that killing intelligent beings was wrong, that the dead Arbai were mourned by their friends, and that the Hippae must never do it again.”
Marjorie breathed. “Poor, naive, well-meaning fool.”
“Do you mean that this Arbai person, this diarist, simplytoldthe Hippae not to do it again?” Father James was incredulous. “Did he think the Hippae would care?”