Learning the World

None had given thought to what a future without trudges would be like; a future that did not begin with a convenient mechanical analogue to take the trudges’ place. Darvin stayed at that counter for three-quarters of an hour, drinking two glasses of tea, his ear cocked to conversations. He heard not a word about trudges or aliens, Gevorkians or Southerners. Gossip and shop talk, and the party politics of the Reach. He moved on when he became convinced that the trudge tethered to the stall was listening too.

“Bahron! Arrell!”

Bahron sprang toward him and clapped him on the shoulder.

“In the name of the Sun and the Queen,” the Eye hissed in his ear, “shut the fuck up. We aren’t called that around here.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Darvin heard his apology coming out slurred. He’d had one too many stumblefruits.

“What’ll you have?” asked Bahron, louder.

“A sharpfruit, thanks.”

“Coming down,” said Bahron. He shoved Darvin towards a table. “Talk to the lady.”

Darvin sat down so hard it hurt his buttocks. “Hello.”

“A whiff, I think,” said Arrell. She waved under his nose a smoking bowl of laughterburn. Darvin inhaled. On the instant the world became lucid and wondrous. Stars flickered in the gaps between tree branches. Rings of poisonous-looking fungi probed up from ground littered with leaves and rinds. He was in a stumblefruit orchard in the university area, to which his ramble had, quite without conscious intent, taken him.

“So much for avoiding scholars and students,” he said.

She didn’t get it, but Bahron, returning with three small ripe fruits, did. “Hah!” he said, sitting down. “Been trying to pick up clues to the popular mood, have we?”

“Yes.”

“Not your job,” Bahron said. “But I don’t doubt you’ve done it well. Let’s see now…” He bit into the fruit and let the juice dribble into his upturned mouth. “Ah, that’s better. You heard very little about the subjects on your mind, but what you did hear told you that people are pretty sceptical about this so-called alien craft, think the claim about it is some kind of manoeuvre by our friends in the South, and if they’re worried about anything beyond their own troubles, it’s Gevork. Trudges? Far from becoming smarter, all you’ve heard is the odd grumble about how some trudge or other is acting even more stupid and recalcitrant than usual.”

Darvin almost choked on his own first sip of the bitter juice. “Exactly!” he spluttered. “How did you know?” He had the sudden, embarrassing suspicion that the Sight had been tracking him ever since he’d left its secret offices.

“From the letters column of The Day,” said Bahron. He waved his hand over the smouldering bowl, inhaled, and regarded Darvin with narrowed eyes through the smoke he breathed out. “A lesson, eh, astronomer?”

Darvin laughed. “Lesson learned,” he said.

“Cabdrivers are another useful source,” said Arrell.

“I don’t suppose,” Darvin said, “you have any idea when we are going to get, you know, some definite view from the Height?”

Bahron ran a finger-claw up and down the side of his nose. “Watch the skies, astronomer,” he said. “Watch the skies.”

Later that evening Darvin noticed a public telephone near the orchard’s exit. When she was on her own Kwarive had the habit of working late in the museum a

“Hello?” Kwarive’s voice sounded sleepy.

“Hello, it’s me.”

“You woke me up. Is everything all right?”

“Yes, everything’s fine. I just wanted to hear your voice.”

“You’re juiced, Darvin.”

“Well, yes, but—”

At that point the line went noisy with a buzz that became louder. Darvin held the earpiece away and looked at it. The co

Shocked back to sobriety, Darvin returned the receiver to his ear.

“What was that?” Kwarive asked.

“Nothing, darling,” Darvin said. “Just some interference. Look, my coins are ru

“You mean tomorrow,” said Kwarive. “It’s after midnight. Good night. Sleep well.”

“You too.”

He hung up the receiver and walked back to the table. Bahron and Arrell were licking the stickiness off their hands and clearly getting ready to leave.

“Everything all right at home?” Bahron asked.

“Yes,” said Darvin. “Everything’s fine.”

Darvin spent the night in a cheap lodging — little more than a bowl to wash in and a rack to hang from — and at dawn, wakened by a prearranged and persistent telephone, waited at the quay for the return packet. The sky was red and the air was cold. Trudges lugged packages and bales to the quayside. None of the trudges showed a glint of intelligence, but, Darvin reflected, nor did many of the humans there. He doubted that he did so himself.

The steamer rounded the western headland. As he gazed at it, Darvin’s attention was caught by a golden gleam high in the sky, far out above the Broad Cha

A louder, harsher throb came from the air in the shoreward direction. Darvin heard shouts. He turned and looked up, and shouted too.

Four flying machines with double wings passed overhead. They looked like the aeroplanes he had imagined, and the experimental airframes Orro had described. Painted on their red wings was the black claw of the Reach. A thrill shook Darvin from head to foot. Nobody here, he was sure, was as amazed as he.

The four craft buzzed seaward and climbed with a rising snarl to meet the descending Gevorkian. They passed it and turned around, sunlight flashing off their tilting wings. Their engine note changed, like that of a motor car throttling back. Two above, two below, they took position on either side of the airship and escorted it down. They looked like flitters beside a grazer, but that was a matter of mere size: the relatively tiny machines gave an impression of concentrated power that the vast wallowing gasbag couldn’t begin to match. Even their engines were louder.

The aircraft passed overhead again, the four aeroplanes pacing the dirigible as it dove toward the mooring masts high on the Mount. A cheer rose from the quay, and from the esplanade, and from the houses round about. The steamer left a half hour late that day.