Brightness Reef

Ur-ro

Mount Gue

“You see? The window’s done! The last big piece we needed for the bathy. A little more work an’ it’ll be ready-eady!”

Huck sniffed disdainfully. She did a good job of it, too, since that’s one of those human gestures you read about that we actually get to see pretty often, whenever Mister Heinz, our local schoolmaster, hears an answer he doesn’t like.

“Great,” Huck remarked. “Whoever rides the thing can see whatever’s about to eat him.”

I had to laugh. “Hrrrm. So now you admit there might be sea monsters after all?”

Huck swiveled three stalks toward me in a look of surprise. It’s not often I can catch her like that.

“I’ll admit I’d want more than just a slab of urrish glass between me and whatever’s down there, twenty thousand leagues under the sea!”

I confess being puzzled by her attitude. This bitterness wasn’t like Huck at all. I tried lightening the mood.

“Say, I’ve always wondered. Has anybody ever figured out exactly how long a league is?”

Two of her eyes gazed at each other, then back at me with a glint of whimsy.

“I looked in the dictionary once, but I couldn’t fathom the answer.”

Pincer complained, “Look, are you two about to start—”

I interrupted, “If anyone does know the answer, I’d sure like to meter.”

“Heh!” Huck made a thrumming sound with her spokes. “That’s assuming you could parsec what she says.”

“Hrrrm. I don’t know if I can take this furlong.”

“Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh!” Pincer complained, feigning agony with all five mouths at once.

That’s how we passed the time while climbing into chilly badlands bare of life, and I guess it shows my dad’s right about us being humickers. But GalTwo and GalSix aren’t any fun for word games. You can’t pun in them at all! You can in GalSeven, but for some reason it just doesn’t hurt as much.

The mountainside got even more stark as we neared the top, where steam vents mark Mount Gue

That day, my imagination was unhoonly active. I couldn’t help pondering all the power bubbling away, deep under the mountain. Nowhere do Jijo’s i

We’re told it’s proper that no trace of our homes will be left after that happens. Still, Jijo can take her own sweet time, as far as I’m concerned.

Despite dozens of tram trips, I still find it kind of surprising whenever the car nears the end of the climb and suddenly a great big cave seems to open out of nowhere, with the rail heading straight for it. Maybe it was all that earlier talk of monsters, but this time I felt a twirl in my heart-spine when that black hollow gaped wide and we plunged toward what looked an awful lot like a hungry mouth, set in the face of an angry, impulsive mountain.

The dark stillness inside was suddenly hot and dry as dust. Ur-ro

Maybe the noor was ready, but Huck, Pincer, and I were thrown completely off balance by what our urrish friend said at that point. Ur-ro

“I am glad in my pouches that you, my friends, could come so soon. Now swiftly to Uriel’s observatory, where she has, for several days, been tracking strange objects in the sky!”

I confess, I was struck dumb. Like the others, I just stared at her for several duras. Finally, we all unfroze at once.

“Hrrrrm, you can’t—”

“What do you—”

“Surely you don’t mean—”

Ur-ro

VI. THE BOOK OF THE SLOPE

It seems ironic that most of Jijo’s night-time constellations were named by humans, the youngest exile sept. None of the prior six had thought of giving fanciful labels to groups of unrelated stars, associating them with real and mythical beasts.

The quaint habit clearly derives from humanity’s unique heritage as an orphaned race — or as self-evolved wolfings — who burst into space without guidance by a patron. Every other sapient species had such a mentor — as the hoon had the Guthatsa and g’Keks had the Droolt — an older, wiser species, ready to teach a younger one the ropes.

But not humans.

This lack scarred Homo sapiens in unique ways.

Countless bizarre notions bloomed among native Terran cultures during humanity’s dark lonely climb. Outtandish ideas that would never occur to an uplifted race — one taught nature’s laws from the very start. Bizarre concepts like co

When Earthlings first did this on Jijo, the earlier groups reacted with surprise, even suspicion. But soon the practice seemed to rob the stars of some of their terror. The g’Kek, hoon, and urs started coming up with sky-myths of their own, while qheuens and traeki were glad to have tales made up about them.

Since the advent of peace, scholars have disagreed in their assessment of this practice. Some say its very primitiveness helps the Six follow in the footsteps of the glavers. This meets with approval from those who urge that we hurry as quickly as possible down the Path of Redemption.

Others claim it is like the trove of books in Biblos, a distraction from achieving the simple clarity of thought that will help us exiles achieve our goal.

Then there are those who like the practice simply because it feels good, and makes for excellent art.