Mainoa nodded sadly, rubbing at his shoulder and arm as though they hurt him.
Marjorie said, “When He … when the foxen think of the Arbai, they always put light around them, as we might picture angels.”
Brother Mainoa wondered how the golden angels high on Sanctity’s towers would look with Arbai fangs and scales. “Not as though they were holy, though, do you think, Marjorie? More as though they were untouchable.”
Marjorie nodded. Yes. The vision had that feeling to it. Untouchable Arbai. Set upon pedestals. Unreachable.
“The Arbai could believe no evil of the Hippae?” Father James could not believe what he was hearing.
Mainoa nodded. “It wasn’t that they couldn’t believe evil of the Hippae. They couldn’t believe in it, period. They seem to have had no concept of evil. There is no word for evil in the material I’ve received from Semling. There are words for mistakes, or things done inadvertently. There are words for accidents and pain and death, but no word for evil. The Arbai word for intelligent creatures has a root curve which means, according to the computers, ‘avoiding error.’ Since the Arbai considered the Hippae to be intelligent—after all, they’d taught them to write—they thought all they had to do was point out the error and the Hippae would avoid it.”
“Of course it wasn’t an error,” Marjorie said. “The Hippae enjoyed the killing.”
Father James demurred. “I have a hard time believing in that kind of mind….”
Brother Mainoa sighed. “She’s right, Father. They’ve translated the word the Hippae trampled into the cavern. It’s an Arbai word, or rather a combination of three or more Arbai words. One of them means death, and one means outsiders or strangers, and one means joy. Semling gives a high probability to translating it asjoy-to-kill-strangers.”
“They think they have a right to kill everything but themselves?”
Father James shook his head.
Marjorie laughed bitterly. “Oh, Father, is that so unusual? Look at our own poor homeworld. Didn’t man think he had a right to kill everything but himself? Didn’t he have fun doing it? Where are the great whales? Where are the elephants? Where are the bright birds who once lived in our own swamp-forests?”
Brother Mainoa said, “Well, they couldn’t kill the ones who lived here in the tree city. The Hippae can’t swim, they can’t climb, so they couldn’t kill the Arbai who were here.”
“It must have been too late for the ones who lived here, nonetheless,” Marjorie said, looking at the shadow lovers who had just returned to the bridge and leaned there in the sun, whispering to one another. Shadow lovers, perilously intent upon one another. Not seeing what was to come. “Perhaps they died when winter came. It was too late for all the others, out there on other worlds.”
“The ones here in the city must have been immune to the disease,” Father James said. “They could have gone underground. Why didn’t they? We must be immune, too. All the people on Grass must be immune.”
“Oh, yes,” Marjorie said. “I’m sure we’re immune, so long as we stay on Grass. It stands to reason the Arbai on Grass were immune, also. That’s why the Hippae killed them as they did. But it doesn’t help to know that! Nothing we’ve found out helps! Nothing tells us how it started. Nothing tells us how to cure it once it’s started. I keep thinking of home. I have a sister back home. Rigo has a mother, a brother, we have nieces and nephews. I have friends!”
“Shhh,” he said. “We know one way to cure it, Marjorie. Anyone who comes here—“
“We don’t even know that,” she contradicted. “Even if we could bring every living human from every populated world to Grass, we don’t know whether they’d catch it again after they left. We don’t know whether we will get it if we leave. We don’t know how it is spread. The foxen know something that will help us, but they won’t tell us! It’s almost as though they’re waiting for something. But what?” She looked up to confront a shadowed mass across the railing. There were eyes, for a moment. Something brushing through her mind. She shook her head angrily. “I have this dreadful feeling of hopelessness. As though it’s already too late for all this. As though things have gone past the point of no return.” Something had changed irrevocably. Some point had been passed. She was sure of that.