WE NOT GOOD
PEACE
IS BREAK ARE
The gukuy suddenly stopped. The ochre in their mantles strengthened. Red fear remained, but the blue began to fade.
Joseph hooted again.
WE MUST OWOC
FRIENDS
US BE ARE
The owoc from both groups suddenly began hooting back and forth. The exchange was too rapid for Indira to follow, even if she had been able to understand the dialect of the new ones. But whatever they were saying, there was no mistaking the reaction of the gukuy. The blue disappeared entirely, as did the red. Ochre remained, but it grew slowly dimmer. And within minutes, faint traces of dappled green began to appear.
That’s one of the great advantages chromatophoric beings have over we poor humans. Even if they can’t speak another’s language, they can still read their emotions. What must they make of us, I wonder?
Incongruously, she snickered.
A bunch of miserable monsters, whose leader is always implacable about everything and one of whom is always in heat.
She glanced at Jens, and had to suppress an outright laugh.
Not far from the truth, actually. It’s amazing how the youngsters adapt to the owoc. Even though they know that human color means nothing, they can’t help reacting unconsciously to Jens’ white skin. I think every youngster in the colony has shared either Jens or Karin Schmidt’s bed. Or both.
(She’d mentioned that to Julius, once. The biologist had laughed, and said: “Yeah, I know. On this planet, the myth is going to be that white people are hyper-sexual. Give it a few generations and I wouldn’t be surprised to see pale skin make a genetic comeback. I doubt if the Nazis would be pleased, though, given the circumstances. Unless they decided the owoc were honorary Aryans.”)
Eventually, expressing themselves in owoc hoots which Indira and Joseph were able to interpret, the gukuy invited the humans into the building which Indira thought to be a temple. Indira immediately accepted.
The minute she walked up the ramp, and saw the interior of the building (as she had suspected, it was open all the way through), all doubt vanished. There was no mistaking the meaning of the huge figurine which rested at the center of the temple.
It was not a carving, but a construct—a wicker-like framework of some kind, embellished and decorated with shells, precious stones, and carved—horn?
She was deeply impressed by the artistry of the piece. The style was in no sense naturalistic. It rather reminded her of the exaggerated style of ancient African carvings. Except for the intricacy of the detail, which had a vague resemblance to the ornate idols in Hindu temples.
But even more than the stylistic resonances, she was stunned by the essence of the figurine itself. It was the statue of a gukuy, in repose. Deep green, in color. She thought that the curl of the arms had meaning, as well.
But whatever the specific significance of any particular detail of the statue, the sense of the whole was unmistakable. Light years apart, and thousands of year later in time, an alien race had produced a being whose vision could not have been so different from one glimpsed on Earth.
Staring at the statue, she took a deep breath. Then, for the first time since entering the valley, felt the tension wash out of her completely.
Siddartha Gautama. The Buddha.
Chapter 12
“The similarity’s only general, of course,” she explained to Julius after she returned. “Until I learn the gukuy language, I won’t be sure. Owoc is such a difficult language in which to convey precise meaning. Still, from what I could glean, their faith absolutely resonates with quasi-Buddhist conceptions.”
“And just how did the teachings of the Buddha find their way to Ishtar—interstellar transcendentalism?” demanded Julius. “Have you become a mystic yourself now?”
Indira smiled. “No, Julius. I’m still the hard-boiled rationalist you know and love. But convergence operates on more than a biological level, my dear. It’s not surprising at all, actually. Most of the great religions on Earth arose within a relatively short time, you know—in cultures scattered all over the planet. Beginning around a half millenium before the birth of Christ. In China, you had Confucius and Lao-Tse. In India, Buddha and the founders of Jainism, and the transformation of the Vedic traditions into Hinduism. In Greece, the rise of philosophy. For that matter, it was during the same general period that your Hebrew ancestors were hammering out their own faith. The last great world religion, Islam, arose not much more than a millenium later. A short time, really, in terms of the whole sweep of human history.”