17
The physical gift is far less significant than the motive of the giver.
—Reverend Agathe Lawless, Sunset Musings, 1312
Books are to be call’d for, and supplied, on the assumption that the process of reading is not a half-sleep, but, in the highest sense, an exercise, a gymnast’s struggle; that the reader is to do something for himself.
—Walt Whitman, Democratic Vistas, 1870 CE
“We ready to go back up?” I asked.
“Hold on.” They hadn’t closed the hatch. Robbi Jo leaned outside and looked back toward the trees. “Hello,” she said. It wasn’t the first time she’d asked the question. There was still some frustration in her voice. She wanted a reply.
She didn’t get one, though. “You owe us,” she said. “Who are you?”
A lonely wind blew across the field.
“You getting anything?” Alex asked.
We stared at one another and shook our heads.
Then something caught Gabe’s attention. “Look.” There was movement near a couple of the bushes. And one of the biped leopards walked out. It held something in its arms. A book. Suddenly we were back on Skydeck with the Ulakans. It was coming toward us, holding it out as if it was ours. While we watched, the second leopard appeared, but just stood without moving.
We stayed inside the lander. We’d done enough reckless stuff. It walked up to the door and laid the book on the ground. Then it joined its partner and both disappeared into the trees.
Robbi Jo was about to go out, but Gabe said, “No. Absolutely not.” He opened the door, climbed down the ladder, and picked up the book. He took a quick glance, returned inside, and closed the hatch. Then we all looked at it. And I aimed my imager at it so Alex could see it.
It was a large volume, hardcover, printed in an alien language completely different from the one we’d seen on the Ulakan volumes. It was an astronomy book, with a shredded plastic cover depicting two galaxies that were probably orbiting each other. It was filled with photos of stars and gas clouds and planets. And diagrams. “Pity,” Robbi Jo said, “it’s loaded with text and captions and we’ll probably never be able to read any of it.”
Some pages contained columns of symbols. Others featured maps with disks and triangles of various sizes and designs. One single drawing spread across two pages showed a portrait of a planetary system. A sun occupied the center, with seven planets. The planets were reproduced in color and with some details, three with rings, and three others had orbiting stations.
There were also photos of aliens in space suits. Helmets covered their heads, but we could see they were the same species that had occupied the village. One photo depicted someone looking across a desert landscape. Unfortunately, the camera was behind him and only his outline was visible. He was wearing a hat, so we still had no view of the top of his head. Robbi Jo turned pages while the rest of us watched. There were numerous pictures of stars, one of a supernova in a distant galaxy, and one of a pair of spiral galaxies. She turned a few more pages and stopped again. “It’s the Whirlpool galaxy,” she said. There were others with which she was familiar.
There was also a drawing of a sky with eight stars. We assumed they were stars, although they were ordered like an arrowhead. One star was at the tip of the arrow, two were angled out on each side, and three more lined up almost directly behind the point. The names of the stars—again that was what we assumed—were listed at the bottom of the page. And there was a caption, of course. I sat there thinking how much I’d have enjoyed being able to read it.
Robbi Jo stopped at a page with an explosion. “I know what that is,” said Gabe. “The Big Bang.”
Robbi Jo agreed. She looked out one of the windows. “I was hoping they’d stick around. The leopards. I wish somebody here would talk to us.” She closed her eyes momentarily. “You think it’s okay for us to take this?”
A large white bird, mostly wings and beak, leaped out of the trees, circled the area, and disappeared back into the woods. “Looked like an egret,” Gabe said.
I heard Alex take a deep breath. “It’s a gift. They’re saying thanks.”
“For saving the tree?” I asked.
Gabe seemed completely taken over by events. “We’ve known for a long time that plants and animals could do this,” he said, “but I never expected to experience it at this level.” He went back to the hatch and reopened it. “Hello,” he yelled. “Who are you? Can we help you in any way?” A steady wind was blowing out of the northeast, off across the lake. Gabe waited, shook his head, sighed, and finally came back in and closed the door. “Let’s go, Chase,” he said.
A few minutes later we were on our way.
When we got back to the Belle-Marie, Alex shook hands with each of us, told us he’d been worried that we wouldn’t make it back, and asked me specifically whether the lander had taken any damage. “No,” I said. “Far as I can tell, it’s fine.” Other than that, he said nothing further to me. There was a stiffness in his attitude that I’d never been aware of before.
Robbi Jo couldn’t resist commenting that it was a pity the book was in a language that probably no one would ever be able to read. “It would be nice to have access to it. I’d love to be able to read it.”
“It seems to have become the season,” said Gabe, “for alien books.”
Alex was still paging through it, after more than an hour. “Actually,” he said, “this one will more than pay for the cost of the flight. There are a lot of collectors back home who will desperately want this.” He lifted another page and studied a photo of a ringed world. “It’s in pretty good condition.”
“I assume,” I said, “it was left by the villagers.”
Alex agreed. “I can’t imagine where else it could have come from. Certainly not one of the trees.”
“Why would they have done that?” said Robbi Jo. “Left it here?”
“Don’t know. If we can find them, we’ll ask.”
From the Belle-Marie we trained the telescope on the section of forest where the downed tree had been. There was nothing we hadn’t already seen. Alex reached for the book. Gabe gave it to him and sat down. I got up and went onto the bridge. A few minutes later Alex followed me. He closed the hatch behind him—not a good sign—and sat down. “Chase,” he said, “we need to talk.”
“Okay.”
“We’re in uncharted territory here. So far there’s been no indication of hostility, but we just don’t know what’s going on.”
“I agree with that, Alex.”
He sat down in the right-hand seat. “I want you to stay with the company.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
“But when I tell you to do something, I expect you to comply. All right? Is that understood?”
“I know that. But there was no way I could back off what I was trying to do.”
“Why?”
“Because somebody was in serious trouble. All we had was the lander.”
“Somebody? You mean the tree?”
“I know it sounds silly.”
“It is silly.”
“We were getting cries for help, Alex.”
“I was listening the entire time. I didn’t hear anything.”
“We weren’t exactly hearing something. Not anything audible. But we were getting telepathic screams. Somebody pleading for help.”
“To rescue a tree?”
“That was what we found. You saw the leopards?”
“Yes. You’re talking about the things that were trying to drag off the downed trunk?”
“That’s right.”
“And you concluded it was the tree that was calling for help?”
“I’m sorry, Alex. You had to be there to understand. I know what this sounds like, but if you’d been on the ground with us, I’m pretty sure you’d have reacted the same way.”
“I’ve been down there.”
“Not when the lightning hit.”
“Okay. You’re right. I don’t get this. I never really bought into it. Telepathy from Mutes I can manage. But not from a tree. Still, okay. Obviously something happened. Gabe and Robbi Jo have the same story. Let’s put that aside for now. Get some dinner and some sleep. Tomorrow we’ll try to get it settled. If somebody’s really talking to us, we’ll find out who it is. Meantime, though, I need to be certain that in a crisis, you will do what you’re told.”
“Alex, we’ve been associated for a long time. There may be an occasion, like this one, where I have information that you don’t. When I’ll need you to trust me. If you can’t agree to do that, I would, with great reluctance, have no choice but to leave.”
“All right. Let’s just relax for a bit. Maybe whoever’s in the forest thinks we have some sort of connection with the villagers?” He started to get up but then settled back into the chair. “There’s something else. I guess I lost my temper while all that was going on. I’m sorry about that.”
“It’s okay. I understand.”
“I don’t think you do, Chase.” He looked out at the sky. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. I don’t want to lose you.” He turned back and his eyes locked on me. “Not ever.”