Footfall

29. FOOTFALL

I dreamt the past was never past redeeming: But whether this was false or honest dreaming I beg death’s pardon now. And mourn the dead.

The funeral pit was a cylinder of soil, garbage, bones, and what remained of the honored dead, all being gradually churned into an indistinguishable matrix. Instruments sampled the blend for acidity, bacterial population, temperature. The atmosphere within was unbreathable. Workers in pressure suits maintained a cavity in the matrix, open at the fore end. They had removed several tons of it into the Garden to make room for this day’s funeral proceedings

The cold had preserved Fathisteh-tulk. His eyes looked off at different angles. As lines lowered him to join the Silent Fithp, his digit-cluster bent strangely above the nostril. One eye met Pastempeh-keph’s. My breath was closed with rope, and then with mud. Why both? What might I have said that I did not say while alive, who never hesitated to speak? Who closed my mouth with mud?

The Herdmaster shook his head. I will learn. He had already spoken his formal farewell to today’s half-dozen dead, recognizing posthumous accomplishments, sometimes authorizing upgrades in harness colors before a corpse was stripped for burial.

Elaborate funeral practices had evolved among the spaceborn during three generations of interstellar flight. Inevitably they were geared to a life in spin gravity. The funeral pit was on the ship’s axis. Ceremonies were held in the leavetaking chamber, a partial ring along the lip of the funeral pit, where spin gravity was almost nil. Today’s ceremony obeyed tradition. The main drive was ru

Pastempeh-keph sensed the immense mass against which Message Bearer was pushing. Message Bearer was even now issuing its final direction to the nickel-and-iron residue of an icy moonlet. She must break loose within a 512-breath, or ride the Foot down to Winterhorne. Had a lessor personage led these rites they might have been postponed until after the maneuvers; but after they separated from the Foot, there would never again be time. Fathisteh-tulk deserved all honors. And even if he did not, I could not seem niggardly in granting honor to a former Herdmaster!

Chowpeentulk watched through glass as Fathisteh-tulk came rest in the moving earth. Her digits wrapped the child and held it to her throat to suckle. He was male, eight days old. Under light thrust he would already have walked. In nearly free-fall he drifted with waving legs. He seemed to enjoy it.

“My mate was murdered,” Chowpeentulk said. “Who?”

“I face too many answers,” Pastempeh-keph said. “Your mate was never careful of whom he might offend.”

She trumpeted wildly. The child, startled, flung its stubby digits across its head and tried to burrow between Chowpeentulk’s legs. In the minuscule thrust its efforts lifted her from the floor. It was strong for a newborn.

The loss of dignity slowed her not at all. “This crime was committed against the whole of the Traveler Fithp!” she bellowed. “Sleepers and spaceborn, how can we hold together unless the murderers face judgment?”

The Herdmaster let silence follow, letting Chowpeentulk see how the others, the fithp and the little clump of humans, stared at her. Then, “We will solve this. You know that I like puzzles. Do you also know that I must fight a war?” He looked into the funeral pit. “Farewell, Fathisteh-tulk. You have too much company.”

He joined Takpusseh as they were leaving. “Fathisteh-tulk had always the virtue of asking interesting questions,” he said. “Now I must find my own.”

“You will have an Advisor,” said Takpusseh.

“Bah. Siplisteph will have to be trained. Breaker-Two, did Fathisteh-tulk ask you interesting questions?”

Takpusseh snorted. “I did not find them so. He wanted to interview the humans in privacy.”

“Why?”

“He would not say. The humans are not his thuktun. I told him that I myself would translate, and that I would inform you of all that transpired. He declined. He said that he would simply wait for me to do my job.”

“Very proper,” said Pastempeh-keph. “Did he propose questions for you to ask?”

“He did not.”

A pity. “Will you be on the bridge during Footfall?”

“No. To think of humans as enemy or prey would ruin my empathy with them… such as it is.”

Tashayamp left them at the cell door. “You will stay in place. Be prepared to cling to the walls. First that wall, but change walls when you are warned. The direction of pull will change often. Before each change you will hear this.” She trumpeted, then spoke in a breathy trombone chant. “You understand? Good.”

They went to the bulkhead. Jeri dug her nails into the rug.

“It is indelicate,” Arvid said. “But they gave no indication of time. It would be well to use the facilities while we are able.”

“Good thinking,” Dawson said. “Ladies first.”

Nobody else wanted to be first, so Jeri went. It wasn’t so bad now that Arvid and Nikolai had rigged a blanket to enclose the shallow pool.

Jeri went back to the wall. “Melissa, I want you here.”

“If you do not object, I will stay with you also,” Arvid said.

“Thank you.”

“What did you think of their funeral rites?” Arvid asked.

“My anthropology teacher said funeral rites were the most important clues to a tribal culture,” Jeri said. “But I think that was because she was an archaeologist, and graves are about the only things they can find with anything important in them.”

“The Predecessors must like bad smells,” Melissa said. “Because that place stank.”

Gary giggled agreement. Jen said, “There, that’s what I meant. There’s nothing arbitrary aboard a spaceship. They don’t have to put up with that smell. They want it. It must be part of the funeral, the sense that the dear departed is turning into fertilizer, then plants, then …”

Arvid said, “You understood more of his speech than I.”

“I got some of it too,” Wes Dawson said. “The long speech by the priest. He talked about Fathisteh-tulk ‘coming back to Traveler Fithp.’ I wondered if he meant in person.”

“Do you think they believe in that?” Jen asked.

“Du

“I think not,” Arvid said. “Else why would they make no mention of the newborn one?”

“The Predecessors are always with us,” he said. “How could that other species join the Traveler Fithp? Their bodies recirculate and there are the thuktunthp, but—”

“Of course they do not believe bourgeois myths of gods immortality,” Dmitri said. “There is much to admire in these fi’. They work together, and if need be they give their lives for herd.”

John Woodward sniffed loudly and turned away.

“That one didn’t,” Alice said. “The widow said he was murdered, and the Bull Elephant wasn’t happy about it, either.”

“An interesting mystery,” Arvid said. “Who might have killed him?”

“We’ll never know,” Dawson said.

“Why do you say that?” Dmitri demanded. “The Leader told the widow that he would find the murderer. He has great resources. Why would he fail?”

“Why would he tell us? If he did, would we know the name? Hey, I read mysteries too, but I expect to know the names of suspects!”

“The Bull isn’t a detective,” Jen said. “He has too much else to do. And — people, I’m kind of scared. All this violent maneuvering, they’re going to do something special, but what?”

“I am very much afraid we all know,” Arvid Rogachev said.

Jeri took a fresh grip on the wall carpeting.