Downbelow Station

In the distance rose that indistinct fish-shaped mass, an irregular pillar, out of a sea of hisa bodies… and not alone hisa. Humans were there, who rose up from where they sat and walked out to meet them, as they came through. Ito of base two was there, with her staff and workers, and Jones of base one, with his, who offered hands to shake, who looked as bewildered as they were. “They said come here,” Ito said. “They said you would come.”

“Station’s fallen,” he said; and the flow was going on, passing through toward the center, hisa urging at him, at him and Miliko most of all. “We’ve run out of options, Ito. Mazian’s in control… this week. I can’t speak for next.”

Ito fell behind, and Jones, staying with their own people; and there were other humans, hundreds upon hundreds gathered there, who stood solemnly, as if numb. He met Deacon of the wells crew; and Macdonald of base three; Hebert and Tausch of four; but the hisa swept him on, and he held Miliko’s hand so they should not be separated in the vast throng. Now there were hisa about them, only hisa. The pillar hove up nearer and nearer, and not a pillar, but a cluster of images, like those hisa had given to the station, squat, globular forms and taller ones, bodies with multiple hisa faces, surprised mouths and wide, graven eyes looking forever skyward.

Hisa had made the like, and it was old. Awe came over him. Miliko slowed at last and simply gazed up, and he did, with hisa all about them, feeling lost and small and alien before this towering, ancient stone.

“You come,” a hisa voice bade him. It was Bounder who took his hand, who led them through to the very foot of the image.

Old Ones indeed sat there, the oldest hisa of all, those faces and shoulders were silvered, who sat surrounded by small sticks thrust into the earth, sticks carved with faces and hung with beads. Emilio hesitated, reluctant to intrude within that circle; but Bounder led them through, into the very presence of the Old Ones.

“Sit,” Bounder urged. Emilio made his bow and Miliko hers, and settled cross-legged before the four elders. Bounder spoke in the chattering hisa tongue, was answered by the frailest of the four.

And carefully then that Old One reached, leaning on one hand, to touch first Miliko and then him, as if blessing them.

“You good come here,” Bounder said, perhaps a translation. “You warm come here.”

“Bounder, thank them. Thank them very many thanks. But tell them that there’s danger from the Upabove. That the eyes of Upabove look down on this place and that men-with-guns may come here and do hurt.”

Bounder spoke. Four pairs of aged eyes regarded them with no less tranquility. One answered.

“Ship come upabove we heads here,” Bounder said. “Come, look, go away.”

“You’re in danger. Please make them understand that.”

Bounder translated. The Eldest lifted a hand toward the images which towered above them and answered. “Hisa place. Night come. We sleep, dream they go, dream they go.”

A second of the elders spoke. There was a human name amid it: Be

The murmur passed the limits of the circle, moved like wind across the vast gathering.

“We steal food,” Bounder said with a hisa grin. “We learn steal good. We steal you, make you safe.”

“Guns,” Miliko protested. “Guns, Bounder.”

“You safe.” Bounder paused to catch something one of the Old Ones said. “Make you names: call you He-come-again; call you She-hold-out-hands. To-he-me; Mihan-tisar. You spirit good. You safe come here. Love you. Be

He found nothing to say, only looked up at the vast images that stared round-eyed at the heavens, stared about him at the gathering which seemed to stretch to all the horizons, and for a moment he found himself believing that it was possible, that this overawing place might daunt any enemy who came to it.

A chant began from the Old Ones, spread to the nearest, and to the farther and farther ranks. Bodies began to sway, passing into the rhythm of it

“Be

“He teach we dream human dreams… call you He-come-again.”

Emilio shivered, reached and put his arm about Miliko, in the mind-numbing whisper which was like the brush of a hammer over bronze, the sighing of some vast instrument which filled all the twilit heavens.

The sun declined to the last. The passing of the light brought chill, and a sigh from uncounted throats, breaking off the song. Then the coming of the stars drew pointing gestures aloft, soft cries of joy.

“Name she She-come-first,” Bounder told them, and called for them the stars in turn, as keen hisa eyes spied them and hailed them like returning friends. Walk-together; Come-in-spring; She-always-dance…

The chant whispered to life again, minor key, and bodies swayed.

Exhaustion told on them. Miliko grew glassy-eyed; he tried to hold her, to stay awake himself, but hisa were nodding too, and Bounder patted them, made them know it was accepted to rest.

He slept, wakened after a time, and food and drink were set beside them. He moved the mask to eat and drink, ate and breathed in alternation. Elsewhere the few awake stirred about among the sleeping multitudes, and for all the dream-bound peace of the hour, attended normal needs. He felt his own, and slipped far away through the vast, vast crowd to the edges, where other humans slept and beyond, where hisa had made neat trenches for sanitation. He stood there a time on the edges of the camp, until others came and he regained his sense of time, staring back at the images and the starry sky and the sleeping throng.

Hisa answer. Being here, sitting here beneath the heavens, saying to the sky and their gods… see us… We have hope. He knew himself mad; and stopped being afraid for himself, even for Miliko. They waited for a dream, all of them; and if men would turn guns on the gentle dreamers of Downbelow, then there was no more hope at all. So the hisa had disarmed them at the begi

He walked back, toward Miliko, toward Bounder, and the Old Ones, believing in a curious way that they were safe, in ways that had nothing to do with life and death, that this place had been here for ages, and had waited long before men had come, looking to the heavens.

He settled beside Miliko, lay and looked at the stars, and thought of his choices.

And in the morning a ship came down.

There was no panic among the tens of thousands of hisa. There was none among humans, who sat among them. Emilio rose with Miliko’s hand in his and watched the ship settle, landing probe, far across the valley, where it could find clear ground.

“I should go speak to them,” he said through Bounder to the Old Ones.

“No talk,” The Eldest answered through him. “Wait: Dream.”

“I wonder,” Miliko observed placidly, “if they really want to take on all Downbelow in their situation up on station.”

Other humans had stood up. Emilio sat down with Miliko, and all across the gathering they began to settle back again, to sit, and to wait.

And after a long time there was the distant hail of a loudspeaker.

“There are humans here,” the metallic voice thundered across the plain. “We are from the carrier Africa. Will the one in charge please come forward and identify himself.”

“Don’t,” Miliko begged him when he shifted to get up. “They could shoot.”

“They could shoot if I don’t go talk to them. Right into this crowd. They’ve got us.”

“Emilio Konstantin there? I have news for him.”

“We know your news,” he muttered, and when Miliko started to get up he held her arms. “Miliko — I’m going to ask something of you.”