Footfall

These creatures must first be defeated. Surely the knowledge was here! All knowledge was contained in the thuktunthp.

The Life-Thuktun was surely interesting enough. The script and diagrams dealt with biology, and Fistarteh-thuktun had studied it before. Hierarchies of plant life to the left, animal life to the right. Tiny, ancient single-nucleated life at the bottom, scaling toward complex warm-blooded air breathers at the top. Simple sketches at every level. The sketch that was third from the top resembled a stunted fi’. It was bulky, flat-skulled, with but one branch to its trunk. The feet were clubs, each with a tiny afterthought of a claw.

The creatures sketched above the prom-fl’ were extinct, though skeletons had been found preserved in soft sedimentary rock. Other pictured life forms had disappeared too, but…shouldn’t that top sketch be the lineaments of a Predecessor? Wouldn’t they have considered themselves the top of the ladder of life? Wars had been fought over that question, too.

It was not easy to ignore Tashayamp, half an octuple of soldiers, and four of Winterhome’s small, flat-faced natives, including one in a wheeled cage. Fistarteh-thuktun could hardly fail to hear Takpusseh lecturing them in baby talk. He let himself glance at the humans. They didn’t resemble that top sketch in any way. Fistarteh-thuktun felt a relief he would not let himself admit.

Since his revival from the death-sleep, the priest’s position had never been stronger. The average fit’ aboard Message Bearer had no grasp of what the Predecessors were all about, or how much Fistarteh-thuktun didn’t know.

But he had a task. He must advise the officers. He must seek any relevant information left by the Predecessors.

He had Koolpooleh’s attention again. “Go on,” he said.

The next thuktun explained the making of aluminum.

“Not known, the shapes of the—” Others? Predecessors? “No pictures of selves. Shape of Predecessor minds, half known.” Tashayamp was speaking slowly, and Wes was catching most of the meaning, he thought. He had to concentrate.

“There were eights of eight-cubed of thuktunthp scattered about the world. The Predecessors” — Tashayamp glanced toward the priest, busy at his huge display screen, and her breathy trumpet of a voice dropped a little — “did not know everything. They did not know that what they did with their machines would ruin the world for them. Maybe they did not know where life would be in the world, after the world healed. They left the thuktunthp everywhere.

“Not told, things about fithp, things about Predecessors. Perhaps thuktunthp were thuktun” — meaning message here — “to Predecessor children’s children. But Predecessor children were not made.”

Arvid asked, “What happened?”

“Fistarteh-thuktun knows. I talk to him. Wait.” Tashayamp turned away. She stood behind the priest and did nothing, waiting.

Wes looked down.

From below, the cradle had blocked some of the script. From above, it didn’t. The sculptors had left a meter or more of margin around the writing; it had worn away unevenly, leaving bulges the cradle arms could grip.

The script was lost to him. Wes studied the diagrams.

The patterns in the Podo Thuktun: here a spray of dots in which Wes could recognize the Summer Triangle: a star pattern. There a pattern of curves that might be the magnetic fields in a Bussard ramjet… Podo could mean starflight or stars or just sky. Certain words and phrases became clear. He was sure that Thuktun Pushithy meant Thuktun Carrier or Message Bearer. Fistarteh-thuktun was a priest; it might bethat he worshiped the Podo Thuktun. He seemed to function as a Librarian too. Loremaster.

Fistarteh-thuktun had turned from the screen and was talking with Tashayamp, too fast to be understood.

“Not known what happened to end Predecessor children,” Tashayamp said. “Perhaps they do not want children because they have destroyed the world. Perhaps they ca

She turned back to Fistarteh-thuktun. Wes studied the star patterns again. The constellations are nearly the same as Earth’s. Nearly, but not identical. They must be from somewhere near — He shuddered. Can more be coming? No, only one ship was in the films they showed us. “Nearby” is meaningless when we’re talking about stars!

Fistarteh-thuktun was speaking again. Wes moved closer to listen to Tashayamp translate into fithp baby-talk.

Their quarters had become tolerable as the fithp learned what they liked. The padding over the six walls was no longer wet. Dawson was almost comfortable.

Dmitri was speaking English. Dawson was ashamed at how glad that made him. I am not a communist. Nobody ever called me that except the goddamn Birchers. But I can’t live alone!

“They were dying. Wes, did it sound as if they destroyed their environment themselves?”

“I thought that’s what Fistarteh-thuktun said.”

“But they must have thought some of them would live. Changed. Could it be true?”

“Do you mean, could the Predecessors be their ancestors? No. There was a thuktun onscreen with a column of biology sketches till Fistarteh-thuktun shifted to something else. Didn’t you notice the sketches? That misshapen fi’ was third from the top. If you were making a hierarchy of life on Earth, would you put humanity third from the top?”

“No,” Dmith said in some irritation, “but I might leave humanity off entirely if I were Christian or some such! Then I might put apes third from the top, if I seriously liked dolphins and whales!”

“That’s too many ifs.”

“Or a Christian or Muslim might put fanciful angels above him—”

“For the moment, we might as well believe as Tashayamp believes,” Arvid said soothingly. “The fithp have studied the subject for much longer than the hour we have been granted. So. A race died of overpollution. The world was changed. In the changed world something new grew up-perhaps a pet or a work animal, an evolved dog or horse. They do seem to worship the Predecessors.”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Wes wondered. “Consider what would happen to tribes who didn’t study the thuktunthp. There were… eight to the fourth power is around four thousand thuktunthp, and a lot of them were duplicates. For every one of those, the first tribe-herd?-to use the information would be the first to rule. It must have happened hundreds of times. Of course they worship the Predecessors!”

Arvid shrugged. “I like to think of them as a tamed elephant. Then the world came apart. Dwarfing is caused by ages of famine. flash floods wi

“Shape wars,” Dmitri said. “Is it your belief that these were religious wars based on interpretation of the thuktunthp?”

“Yes,” He shook his head. “Very strange.”

Dmitri laughed. “Why strange? Human history is full of such. The Byzantine Church was divided, and civil wars resulted, from what icons were permitted to be shown in churches. The Christian god has no shape, yet one of the prophets was permitted to see his hindquarters. Not his front, you understand. Only his hindquarters. I do not know if that resulted in wars among the Jews, but it easily might.”

“You’d think there would be some pictures of the Predecessors,” Dawson said.

“Perhaps there were,” Dmitri mused. “Only-suppose there were descendents of the Predecessors, and the fithp killed them. It would not be an easy thing to face, that you had killed the sons of your gods.

One hell of a guilt trip. “Or maybe there were pictures of the Predecessors,” Wes said. “Maybe they were destroyed as blasphemous, in the period when they thought the Bussard ramjet diagram was the shape of a Predecessor.”