Out in the open and close-up, the constructions were even vaster than Rakki had guessed when looking down at them. What manner of craft was needed to fashion such things, he had no idea. Farther away in the opposite direction, a number of long columns of white and the silver color showed by freshly scratched metal lay along the ground, and one was standing on end, pointing toward the sky. Something told Rakki intuitively that these were yet larger and more powerful birds that traveled to the domain beyond the clouds. Strange noises came from all directions: droning and snorting like the calls of some animals; banging and clashing; bursts of what sounded like the rapid barking of dogs.
They began walking toward the nearer structures, over ground that was as flat as smoothed sand, yet hard like rock. In one place, a metal animal with an arm bearing a huge bowl, but with flat sides, was digging a trench, scooping as much earth with each bite as a man could move in a day of heavy work. Naarmegen waved a hand and said something that sounded carelessly cheerful. Rakki indicated that he didn’t understand. “All a mess. Still lots to do,” White Head translated from behind, where he was following with Gap Teeth. Many heads turned to follow them curiously. Some of the figures waved. Rakki was not sure what it meant, and so didn’t respond.
They arrived at one of the structures. It was like a cliff or the side of a crag that had been split by a fissure, but made of metal or some other Oldworlder stuff like the made-animals and the birds. Like them, it possessed windows that were solid yet clear. Several steps led up to a pair of doors that opened of their own accord as the arrivals approached.
Rakki’s first impression of the inside was that although it was made from Oldworlder materials and lit by their strange light, it felt like being back in one of the caves. More stairs, a greater number this time, took them higher to emerge into a space that was like the inside of the bird, but much larger and with many more people. A group assembled in the center seemed to be waiting for them. Keene was among them, and so was the goddess, Sariena. They greeted Rakki and his two companions, and then introduced another Sky Being called Gallian, whose hair was almost the color of White Head’s, but straighter and softer. Everyone was smiling. It seemed strange to Rakki that gods who commanded such ferocious powers should be so apparently anxious not to offend. There was nothing they could possibly fear from these three unarmed visitors who were mustering all of their self-control not to let their confusion and bewilderment show, and yet they were acting as if they conceded superiority of status. It made no sense.
Communicating mainly through Naarmegen, they gave assurances that there was nothing to be feared from the Sky People. They had not come here to make war. Rakki had already arrived at that conclusion. Warrior groups made war because they stood to gain things from those whom they vanquished—food, females, territory, possessions; or simply to eliminate them as potential threats to themselves. His one lingering thought had been that his people might be wanted for slave labor when he learned that the Sky People were building a settlement. But since arriving, he had already laid that fear to rest. They had no need of slaves. They made their own—stronger, uncomplaining, and untiring—slaves who would never drive spears into the masters’ backs or slit their throats while they slept.
So what did they want?
* * *
In the cramped work space that Sariena’s planetary scientists had been using aboard the Surya, Damien, her assistant, mulled over the results of simulations run from the latest observations of the motions of Athena and the perturbed planetary orbits that Athena’s onslaught had induced. The emerging patterns were so intriguing that the group were still up in the ship, even though lab space had been available in Serengeti for almost a week.
There was no doubt now that Athena was circularizing its orbit at a far faster rate than the old Terran theories would have deemed possible. That in itself was no huge revelation. Earlier data had pointed to it; and the old theories hadn’t allowed for electrical conditions or the effectiveness of gravitational tidal forces in damping the orbit of a hot plastic body toward lower-energy states. What was unexpected was the way in which the future extrapolations showed sets of resonances in which various Solar System bodies could cooperate in partitioning momentum and energy between themselves in such a way as to minimize further interactions—in other words, establish a new stable configuration—in a surprisingly short time.