62: Realignment

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“I have never claimed to be – ”

“I didn’t say you claimed to be anything. But that’s how you think. Like you and your people dropped out of the sky, a nascent beginning that gets to dictate our future. You repeatedly talk about how this is my people’s Earth, but not once have you ever taken our opinions on its future seriously; it’s all about you nobly deciding to refrain from destroying things and us not disagreeing with your decisions because we can’t possibly know any better. Honestly, the sheer arrogance of the whole display with the reservoir in the sleeplands still gets to me. ‘Oooh, I’ll tell the neima about what this reservoir could do to their lands and then they’ll get you’; ‘oooh, don’t tell the neima!’; like there’s any chance they didn’t know. They live or die with the ecological stability of the land; do you really think that there’s any chance at all that the very first question on their minds when they were filling an artificial lake for their resident sky people to fill with life from the stars wasn’t ‘how will this affect the local ecology?’ Do you think they didn’t listen to the sky people explain that they couldn’t eat the local life and immediately realise that the reverse was also very likely to be true? And decide to help anyway?

“And your whole thing with not sharing your magic because it might affect our trade networks and disadvantage some hives or whatever. What do you think happens already when one of our hives discover some new resource or more efficient way of doing things? Did it occur to you to wonder, or are we just some never-changing filler civilisation to you, some static background of life for you to show up and impose your views on? I understand your refusal to trade anything big without consulting with the rest of your people, obviously, but this whole thing you’ve got with Kesal and worrying about others trading magic with the Glittergem Hive confuses me, because it doesn’t seem like it once occurred to you to actually ask the hives what they want.”

“Of course Glittergem would want us to trade – ”

“Not the hive. The hives. Did it once occur to you to have a meeting with your people once they arrive, discuss what you’re willing to trade as a group, and have the Glittergem men explain the situation to everyone via the wingsong stream? Have them outline the specific uses for the things you’re willing to trade and let everyone decide what should or shouldn’t be traded, and what should be general knowledge or restricted to specific hives? No, probably not; after all, we ‘don’t know any better.’

“We’ve lived here a long, long time, Smon. We know how to incorporate change into our cycles. And maybe you won’t get to save every single bug or fish that gets in your way, and that is sad, but things die all the time and if you’re asking us to choose between some bugs with slightly different coloured wings to other bugs or a whole new kind of life, not only that but a whole new kind of people, I don’t think anybody’s going to vote for the bugs. Our ancestors killed off plenty of animals, on purpose, when they first seeded this continent with sweetroot. Besides, you’re here now! You think your people scattered over the ocean aren’t already as much a danger to some random fish as you are to those sunseekers? Does regret help when the tunnel’s collapsing around you?”

There’s a moment before Smon seems to realise that Tyk expects an answer. “… No?”

“Rotting right it doesn’t! When the tunnel’s collapsing, you don’t sit about moping and clicking your claws and whinging that you should’ve dug in the other direction. You keep your eyes on the walls, you shore up the supports, and you chew fresh mortar as fast as you can! Your last chance to worry about this stuff was back when you were climbing into your little egg boat on the javlyn. You may not have known about us back then, but your rotting well did know that there’s be life here like those sunseekers, and you chose to come down anyway. And now you’re here, and it’s our Earth, and it’s our turn to choose, and every hive you’ve met has chosen to help you grow and thrive. The whole continent was putting forward help to gather you all together at the Starspire before the wingsong stream went down. Redstone River took time and personnel and resources away from dealing with a sudden food crisis to send you to Green Hills, for your peoples’ safety. Glittergem has put immeasurable support into the very project that we’re supposed to be accomplishing right now. Even the neima not only sheltered and helped your hivemates but changed their migration cycle specifically to be able to help us get here.”

“Green Hills – ”

“Green Hills were so supportive of your journey that when a radical group wanted to kill you, they had to stage a boat accident to do it to avoid anyone stopping them! And it didn’t work, because they couldn’t even fill a boat with conspirators; when their plan was revealed, half of the boat rose up, against their own hivemates, against their compatriots of blood and home, to protect you! A stranger! Did you check in on what happened at the Green Hills Hive after? No, of course you didn’t; it wouldn’t occur to you to do so. Well, I did, and it’s very likely that everyone involved will be exiled. Do you understand how radical that is? It’s almost impossible to get exiled for anything that doesn’t directly and grievously harm your own hive. Killing a hivemate without just cause is an exile offence. Deliberately and maliciously poisoning your own farms is an exile offence. Crimes committed against outsiders can result in permanent shell marking and disciplinary duty, if severe enough, but exiling someone for something done to an outsider is practically unheard of. Now, the hiveheart, I understand; they absolutely betrayed their own hive by instigating this secretly, knowing it would be against the hive’s will. But everyone? The assassins on the boat? For an outsider, not only from the hive, not only from the continent, but from the Earth? Do you understand how seriously they are taking this?

“You’re worried about that sunseeker? Then try not to kill its food source when you settle. You’re worried about making things that nothing here can eat and hurting the environment? Well, you put together a bunch of life that can make our food edible to you; I’m sure that between our knowledge of the world and all the fancy lorekeepers you’re planning to summon, you can find some that can turn it back. You know what’s not helping? Sitting about whining about how you’re some unique mysterious evil that’s going to doom all of us poor locals who are too stupid to see it coming.

“We’ve put in so much, given up so much, to get here. My truebrother, a citizen of the Redstone River Hive, asked me what a river is once. And I couldn’t describe it in a way that he can understand. But I’m here, and I don’t for one second regret coming here. I don’t rreget what we’ve accomplished, and I don’t regret what we’re going to accomplish, no matter how much the idea of a future seems to scare you.

“What do I have to do – what do any of us on this Earth have to do – to finally convince you that you are worth the trouble?”

Smon doesn’t respond right away, because she’s doing that thing where her whole upper body convulses while fluid pours from her eyes. She reaches out and wraps her arms tightly around Tyk’s middle.

“I’m sorry,” she says, the calm recorded words at odds with her behaviour. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? Why are you sorry?”

“For not… you’re right, you’ve done so much, I should’ve – ”

“Yes, yes, I love you, too. Are we going to get this project started?”

“Yes.” Smon stands up, straightens her silks, and only then seems to notice her bleeding arm. She doesn’t look particularly alarmed, so Tyk supposes that her bite didn’t cause any real damage. “Yes, let’s get to work.”

It’s actually quite some time before they send the message. They have to wait for the sun to be directly overhead.

“My people need to know where we are,” Smon explains, “and we don’t have an agreed-upon system for conveying that information. I can’t say ‘North of the Glittergem Hive’ or ‘West of the Starspire’; they won’t know what that means. Normally I’d say how far down the planet we are – that is, how far away from the equator we are – and how far around the planet we are. I can tell them how far from the equator we are; the stargazers at Glittergem had that information. But how far around is tricky, because we don’t have an agreed-upon place to use as the starting point, and there’s no landmarks that both I and they know about to use as one.”

“Except the sun,” Ketyk says from Tyk’s horn, understanding.

“Exactly.” She rubs his head, along the brow, about where his horns would be if he were a girl. “If I tell them I’m sending it when the sun’s directly overhead, then they can use that to calculate how far East or West I am.” She looks to Tyk. “You’re sure that none of the Northern coast is sleeplands?”

“None of it,” she says. “It’s all either empty, or taken up by a hive. Nobody on the ocean who hears this will land in the sleeplands.”

Smon nods. She looks up at the sun. “It’s about time.” And she takes off her echo stone and, instead of using her eye to have it speak Smon’s language, uses her mouth to speak her own language into it.

Tyk can’t understand the words, of course, but Smon has already told her what she’s going to say. After some information about where they are, how many times the message will repeat and over how many days it’ll be rebroadcast, and similar information, she says,

“Attention, colonists of the Javlyn Wanderer. This is Smon Rycht, colonist #1732. For those who don’t yet know, this Earth is home to intelligent life. I repeat: this Earth is home to intelligent life. While there have been some minor incidents and caution is advised, the intelligent life on this continent have been largely favourable to our presence.

“I have secured permission and support to build a settlement and a Rayjo Tau at this location. We are on a mountain range which reaches the coast. I am calling for colonists to gather at this location. Location information will be repeated at the end of this message.

“Should you land anywhere on the Northern coast of the continent, the locals will be in communication with the locals here and have knowledge of your destination. In case you need them, the names of some local landmarks in their language will be added to the end of this message, with location data. Be aware that their language is not pronounceable by us.

“Again: There is an intelligent life form on this Earth. They are generally favourable to our presence and have granted permission and support for a settlement at this location. I am calling for the colonists to gather and settle at this location.

“Let’s build ourselves a new home, Wanderers.”

Smon listens to the recording a couple of times, nods in satisfaction, and holds out an arm. Ketyk leaps up from Tyk’s horns onto her arm, barely having to flap his wings to make the jump, and Smon carefully ties the echo stone around his body, avoiding his wings.

“Remember,” she says, “as high as you can take it.”

“As high as you can take it safely,” Tyk says. “We can always try to send the message again. We can’t replace you.”

“As high as you can take it safely,” Smon amends.

“No problem,” Ketyk says, and without another word, or any hint of apprehension, leaps up in a sudden blur of dark body and pale, barely-coloured wings.

“Wow,” Tyk says. “We really did it, huh.”

“We did it,” Smon says. “Well, we got started. If we want to be ready to receive people, we need to start building right away. Some of them probably aren’t all that far out.”

“I’ll let Yar know,” Tyk says. But she doesn’t move just yet. The two of them just stand, side by side, on that ridge overlooking the ocean, while high above, Smon’s message calls the wayward travellers home.

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