A couple of tentative steps, and Jay glanced from side to side, giggling. “This is brilliant. You don’t need to build bridges
and stuff.”
You have happiness now?
“You bet.” She started to walk towards Haile. Slow ripples expanded out from under her shoes, clashing and shimmering away.
Jay couldn’t stop the giggles. “We should have had this in Tranquillity. We could have got out to that island, then.”
Rightness.
Smiling happily, Jay let Haile’s arm tip wrap round her fingers, and together they walked over the lake. After a couple of
minutes the towers of the locus seemed no closer. Jay began to wonder just how big they were.
“Where’s Vyano, then?”
He comes.
Jay scanned the base of the towers. “I can’t see anybody.” Haile stopped, and looked down at her feet, head swaying from side
to side.
I have sight.
Promising herself she wouldn’t yelp or anything, Jay looked down. There was movement beneath her feet. A small pale-grey mountain
was sliding through the water, twenty metres beneath the surface. Her heart did sort of go
thud
, but she clamped her jaw shut and stared in amazement. The creature must have been bigger than any of the whales in her didactic
zoology memories. There were more flippers and fins than Earth’s old behemoths, too. A smaller version of the creature was
swimming along beside it, a child. It curved away from its parent’s flank, and started to race upwards, its fins wriggling
enthusiastically. The big parent rolled slowly, and dived off into the depths. “Is this Vyano?” Jay exclaimed.
Yes. He is a cousin.
“What do you mean cousin? He’s nothing like you.”
Humans have many sub-species.
“No we don’t!”
There are Adamists and Edenists, white skin, dark skin; more shades of hair than colours in the rainbow. This I have seen
for myself.
“Well, yes, but… Look here, there’s none of us live underwater. That’s just totally different.”
Corpus says human scientists have experimented with lungs that can extract oxygen from water.
Jay recognized that particular mental tone of pure stubbornness. “They probably have,” she conceded.
The aquatic Kiint child was over fifteen metres long; flatter than a terrestrial whale, with a thick tractamorphic tail that
was contracting into a bulb as it neared the surface. Its other appendages, six buds of tractamorphic flesh, were spaced along
its flanks. To help propel it through the water, they were currently compressed into semicircular fans that undulated with
slow power. Perhaps the most obvious pointer to a shared heritage with landbound Kiint was the head, which was simply a more
streamlined version that had six gills replacing the breathing vents. The same large semimournful eyes were shielded with
a milky membrane.
Vyano broke surface with a burst of spray and energetic waves, which churned outward. Jay was suddenly trying to keep her
balance as the lake’s surface bounced about underneath her like some hyperlastic trampoline. Haile was bobbing up and down
beside her, in almost as much trouble, which was slightly reassuring. When the swell had eased off, a mound of glistening
leaden flesh was floating a couple of metres away. The aquatic Kiint formshifted one of its flank appendages into an arm,
tip spreading out into the shape of a human hand. Jay touched palms.
Welcome to Riynine, Jay Hilton.
“Thank you. You have a lovely world.”
It has much goodness. Haile has shared her memories of your Confederation worlds. They are interesting also. I would like
to visit after I am released from parental proscription.
“I’d like to go back, too.”
Your plight has been spoken of. I grieve with you for all that has been lost.
“Richard says we’ll pull through. I suppose we will.”
Richard Keaton is attuned to Corpus,
Haile said.
He would not tell untruths.
“How could you visit the Confederation? Does that jump machinery of yours work underwater as well?”
Yes.
“But there wouldn’t be much for you to see, I’m afraid. Everything interesting happens on land. Oh, except for Atlantis, of
course.”
Land is always small and clotted with identical plants. I would see the life that teems below the waves where nothing remains
the same. Every day is joyfully different. You should modify yourself and come to dwell among us.
“No thank you very much,” she said primly.
That is a sadness.
“I suppose what I mean is, you wouldn’t be able to see what humans have achieved. Everything we’ve built and done is on the
land or in space.”
Your machinery is old to us. It holds little attraction. That is why my family returned to the water.
“You mean you’re like our pastorals?”
I apologise. My understanding of human references is not complete.
“Pastorals are people who turned away from technology, and lived life as simply as they can. It’s a very primitive existence,
but they don’t have modern worries, either.”
All races of Kiint embrace technology,
Haile said.
The providers cannot fail now; they give us everything and leave us free.
“This is the bit about you which I don’t really get. Free to do what?”
To live.
“All right, try this. What are you two going to be when you grow up?”
I shall be me.
“No no.” Jay would have liked to stamp her foot for emphasis. Given what she was standing on, she thought better of it. “I
mean, what profession? What do Kiints spend all day doing?”
You know my parentals were helping with the Laymil project.
All activity has one purpose,
Vyano said.
We enrich ourselves with knowledge. This can come from simply interpreting the observed universe or extrapolating thoughts
to their conclusion. Both of these are complementary. Enrichment is the result life is dedicated to. Only then can we transcend
with confidence.
“Transcend? You mean die?”
Body lifeloss, yes.
“I’m sure doing nothing but thinking is all really good for you. But it seems really boring to me. People need things to keep
them occupied.”
Difference is beauty,
Vyano said.
There is more difference in the water than on land. Our domain is where nature excels, it is the womb of every planet. Now
do you see why we chose it over the land?
“Yes. I suppose so. But you can’t all spend the whole time admiring new things. Somebody has to make sure things work smoothly.”
That is what the providers do. We could not ascend to this cultural level until after our civilization’s machinery had evolved
to its current state. Providers provide, under the wisdom of Corpus.
“I see, I guess. You have Corpus like Edenists have Consensus.”
Consensus is an early version of Corpus. You will evolve to our state one day.
“Really?” Jay said. Arguing philosophy with a Kiint wasn’t really what she had in mind when she wanted to visit Riynine. She
gestured round, trying to indicate the locus and all the other extravagant buildings: an act of human body language which
was probably wasted on the young aquatic Kiint. “You mean humans are going to wind up living like this?”
I cannot speak for you. Do you wish to live as we do?
“It’d be nice not having to worry about money and stuff.” She thought of the Aberdale villagers, their enthusiasm for what
they were building. “But we need concrete things to do. That’s the way we are.”
Your nature will guide you to your destiny. It is always so.
“I suppose.”
I sense we are kindred, Jay Hilton. You wish to see newness every day. That is why you are here on Riynine. Query.
“Yes.”
You should visit the Congressions. That is the best place for a view of the physical achievement which you value so.
She looked at Haile. “Can we?”
It will have much enjoyment,
Haile said.
“Thanks, Vyano.”
The aquatic Kiint began to sink back below the water.
Your visit is a newness which has enriched me. I am honoured, Jay Hilton.
______
When Haile had told Jay that Riynine was a capital world, the little girl had imagined a cosmopolitan metropolis playing host
to a multitude of Kiint and thousands of exciting xenocs. The Corpus locus was certainly grandiose, but hardly kicking.
Her impression changed when she popped out of the black teleport bubble onto one of Riynine’s Congressions. Although the physical
concept was hardly extravagant for a race which had such extraordinary resources, there was something both anachronistic and
prideful in the gigantic cities which floated serenely through the planet’s atmosphere. Splendidly intricate colossi of crystal
and shining metal that proclaimed the true nature of the Kiint to any visitor; more so than the ring of manufactured planets.
No race which had the slightest doubt about its own abilities would dare to construct such a marvel.
The one in which Jay found herself was over twenty kilometres broad. Its nucleus was a dense aggregation of towers and circuitous
columns of light like warped rainbows; from that, eight solid crenated peninsulas radiated outwards, themselves bristling
with short flat spines. The bloated tufts of cloud it encountered parted smoothly to flow around its extremities, leaving
it at the centre of a doldrum zone whose clarity seemed to magnify the landscape ten kilometres below. Shoals of flying craft
spun around it, their geometries and technologies as varied as the species they carried; starships equipped with atmospheric
drives cavorted along the same flightpaths as tiny ground-to-orbit planes. All of them were landing or taking off from the
spines on the peninsulas.
Jay had arrived at one end of an avenue which ran along the upper reaches of a peninsula. It was made from a smooth sheet
of some burgundy mineral, host to a web of glowing opalescent threads that flowed just below the surface. Every junction in
the web sprouted a tall jade triangle, like the sculpture of a pine tree. A roof of crystal arched overhead, heartbreakingly
similar to an arcology dome.
Jay held on to Haile’s arm with a tight grip. The avenue thronged with xenocs, hundreds of species walking, sliding, and in
several cases flying along together in a huge multicoloured river of life.
All her pent up breath was exhaled in a single overwhelmed “Wow!” They hurried off the teleport circle, allowing a family
of tall, feathered octopeds to use it. Globes similar to providers, but in many different colours, glided sedately overhead.
She sniffed at the air, which contained so many shifting scents all she could really smell was something like dry spice. Slow
bass grumbles, quick chittering, whistles, and human(ish) speech gurgled loudly about her, blurring together into a single
background clamour.
“Where do they all come from? Are they all your observers?”
None of them are observers. These are the species who live in this galaxy, and some others. All are friends of Kiint.
“Oh. Right.” Jay walked over to the edge of the avenue. It was guarded by a tall rail, as if it were nothing more than an
exceptionally big balcony. She stood on her toes and peeked over. They were above a compact city, or possibly a district of
industrial structures. There didn’t appear to be any movement in the lanes between the buildings. Right in front of her, spacecraft
swished along parallel to the peninsula’s crystal roof as they vectored in on their landing sites.
The Congression was high enough above the land to lose fine details amid the broader colour swathes of mountains and savannahs.
But as though to compensate, the curvature of the horizon could be seen, a splinter of purple neon separating the land and
the sky. A coastline was visible far ahead. Or behind. Jay wasn’t sure which way they were travelling. If they were.
She contented herself with watching the spacecraft flying past. “So what are they all doing here, then?”
Different species come here to perform exchanges. Some have ideas to give, some require knowledge to make ideas work. Corpus
facilitates this. The Congressions act as junctions for those who seek and those who wish to give. Here they can find each
other.
“That all sounds terribly noble.”
We have opened our worlds to this act for a long time. Some races we have known since the beginning of our history, others
are new. All are welcome.
“Apart from humans.”
You are free to visit.
“But nobody knows about Riynine. The Confederation thinks Jobis is your homeworld.”
I have sadness. If you can come here, you are welcome.
Jay eyed a quartet of adult Kiint walking along the avenue. They were accompanied by what looked suspiciously like spectres
of some slender reptilians dressed in one-piece coveralls. They were certainly translucent, she could see things through them.
“I get it. It’s sort of like a qualifying test. If you’re smart enough to get here, you’re smart enough to take part.”
Confirm.
“That’d be really helpful for us, learning new stuff. But I still don’t think people want to spend their life philosophising.
Well… one or two like Father Horst, but not many.”
Some come to the Congressions asking for our aid, and to improve their technology.
“You give them that, machines and things?”
Corpus responds to everyone at a relative level.
“That’s why the provider wouldn’t give me a starship.”
You are lonely. I brought you here. I have sorrow.