The next morning, Boro and the spear fisherman sat around a cheery blaze just above the high-tide line, turning shellfish at the edge of the fire until they were cooked just right. They had not been able to speak a word to each other, except for their names and a few nouns for objects close at hand, but they felt like old friends.
Dolphins, seals, manatees, and giant sea turtles played in the lagoon, occasionally tossing a shell onto the beach for the monkey mammals to consider.
About mid-morning, a golden sphere settled onto the water of the lagoon, the hatch opened, and Ashley looked out. “Ready to tear yourselves away from this paradise?”
Trekila and Memsala shared farewell touches or squeaks with the friends they had made, then slipped into the clear tunnel just inside the partly-submerged hatch.
Boro shared a strong hand-clasp with the spear fisherman. “Good fishing to you!”
“Blor-shesh
tim’ta!”
Boro nodded and smiled, then waded into the water to swim out to his deep-space response ship.
Mati sat proudly atop Malika-Terno, her knees bent, ready to become the hair on his back if he broke into a run.
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The golden ship extended landing struts and touched down on the ridge between that hilltop and the next.
Malika-Terno called an ear-piercing farewell, and the stallion echoed. The five mares added their own words that Mati did not understand, but she imagined they were saying thank you for the brushing. She waved to them.
Without a word from the horse, or a pause in his motion, Mati slipped off Malika-Terno’s back as he approached the ship, knowing horse or rider would fit through the hatch, but not both at once.
Ss’klexna Rrr’tak’fi and Sata crouched side by side on a cold mountain boulder surrounded by snow, both ursine and monkey-mammal noses thrust out to catch any interesting scent on the crisp air.
Mati, back at the helm, brought the hatch right to them. Ilika, at the steward’s console, lowered the ship’s air temperature so the new arrivals wouldn’t faint.
Kibi was deeply torn.
A part of her was tempted to be very assertive, almost forceful, with eight-year-old Triss about returning with them to the star station to look for her parents.
Another part of her was ashamed of that temptation as she remembered her own slavery, and wondered why she would contemplate forcing anyone, to do anything, who was completely happy with their environment and their current companion.
Then she realized the problem. Triss had what Kibi couldn’t have. Kibi was jealous.
Nearby, finishing his breakfast of raw snake, Toran Takil made eye contact with her. “I sense your inner conflict.”
Kibi blushed, and hoped he only sensed the part about Triss. “I know I have to respect her choice.”
“Yes, you do. There are many planets where people are not allowed to choose their paths, even when they are ready. Those peoples have not mastered the craving for power, and they play out that craving in all aspects of life. Those are not civilizations. You were born on one of those planets, I
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believe.”
Kibi took a deep breath and nodded just as Triss and Bad Kitty returned from their own short hunting trip. The huge tiger carried a bird in his mouth.
Triss handed Kibi a piece of ripe fruit.
Kibi was just a few bites into her delicious breakfast when the Manessa Kwi began to slowly descend from the jungle canopy high above.
“Our ship,” Kibi said with a sad voice.
Triss wrapped her arms around the conflicted Nebador citizen. “Triss remember Kibi, ask for you when I get to star station . . . someday . . . when I all grown up.”
The ship arrived beside them, the hatch opened, and Ashley looked out.
Bad Kitty growled a warning.
Triss scratched him behind the ears. “He protect me, always.”
Toran Takil leapt into the ship.
With tears in her eyes, Kibi hugged Triss once more, then jumped across the meter of space that separated the jungle from her deep-space response ship.
The Manessa Kwi made quick work of the journey over the mountains to the desert.
Ilika, at the watch station, wondered why the three tracer symbols were so close together on his screen, almost on top of each other, then quickly saw the reason.
As the ship approached, the sun finally rose over the mountains to illuminate the boulder where Rini, Kolarrr’ka, and T’sss’lisss snuggled close together, staying just out of reach of the three or four coyotes who still had hopes of a feast of bird, snake, and if they were very lucky, monkey mammal.
Mati smiled as she lowered the ship so they could step right into the hatch.
Ilika took the helm and piloted the ship to Satamia City very slowly so his crew and passengers could get baths and clean clothes.
The capital of Satamia Two was almost impossible to see from the air, nestled under towering trees of many kinds in the planet’s temperate zone —
not too hot, cold, wet, or dry.
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The port controller directed them to a grassy field where a small Nebador cargo ship was unloading pallets from another planet, and preparing to take on pallets of local forest products.
Most of the contact specialists dashed away to visit old friends or enjoy their favorite parts of the city. Trekila Spimalo and Memsala wished the others a good visit, but both planned to catch up on some reading, instead of braving the nearby fresh-water river that would give them rashes and chaffing for weeks.
Ashley knew this was the first opportunity for her monkey-mammal friends, other than Ilika, to see a true civilization. She thought it would be very good for them, before arriving at their mission on Ko-tera Three, to glimpse the lives of people who had successfully solved the huge challenges that all sapient races eventually faced.
A tall reptile, who knew both languages, greeted them and identified himself as their guide.
The crew’s first stop appeared to be a lush botanical garden. The caretaker, a fanator, showed the visitors some of the many things that arrived in wheel barrows, jugs, or tanks, from caustic chemical reagents to waste cooking oil, none of which could be returned to the environment directly.
They walked through a building where scholars dug through reference books, searched databases, or ran simulations on computers. The guide explained what each person was doing.
Finally they explored the gardens themselves where countless plants, and some simple animals, went through their life cycles, and in the process changed many pollutants into things that could eventually be returned to the natural world.
At one point on the tour, Mati commented that the fruit on a certain tree looked delicious.
The guide, translating for the fanator, informed her that the fruit was full of a poisonous metal, and it would be composted and sent through several more biological processes before it was safe.
After a snack of fruits and vegetables from a regular garden, the crew
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visited a grove of trees where small groups of students were studying different subjects.
Several young equines and an ursine listened to an older horse. The guide translated part of the lesson for the visitors, and they smiled, recognizing the quantitative logic they had learned in the mountains of their home planet.
In another part of the grove, avians and a pair of young monkey mammals were learning to read under the patient direction of a bright-eyed bird.
Although the visitors did not know the language, they could tell the students were being sorely challenged.
“Does everyone have to learn to read?” Rini asked.
“No,” their reptilian guide answered, “that’s not possible. This is a general society where we have to accommodate everyone, unlike Satamia Star Station where the citizens are highly selected. But on this continent, basic reading is required because we all have to use technology. The class you just observed is the lowest level, those who are barely going to qualify after lots of hard work.
But they are all motivated, as they’ve already lived in a simpler society on another continent, and know they’re not happy there.”
Boro used to think he was a slow reader. Then he remembered that he had learned to read and write one language in half a year, and speak, read, and write another the following year. Suddenly, he didn’t feel so slow.
Soon all the study groups took a break and everyone lined up at a serving table laden with a variety of foods. After taking some fish and fruit, the two young monkey mammals timidly approached the group of visitors. The reptilian guide smiled, knowing how rare sapient monkey mammals were in the universe.
“Are you brother and sister?” Sata asked.
The guide curled his mouth with humor before translating.
The young pair burst out laughing and cringed at the same time. The girl said something in her native language.
“She said, ‘You mean extras? No way! Our parents weren’t over-breeders!
They wanted us to have a chance to learn things and apply to live on other continents.’”
Sata considered this as she ate her fish. “What would have happened if they were brother and sister?”
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The guide cleared his throat. “They probably would have to take their chances on the wilderness continent where life is very hard. And their over-breeding parents too, of course. No creature, unless highly selected and trained like Nebador citizens, can resist the temptation to over-breed without strong motivations.”
“So . . . people here can only have one child?” Mati asked with a barely-hidden frown.
“Right. That leaves room for a few of those who survive the wilderness continent, and a few immigrants. We don’t mess around with that issue. This planet can only support about two billion large animals, and the wild creatures get half of that. We will not go back to the times when millions died of starvation every year just so a few could enjoy the luxury of having all the babies they wanted.”
Mid-afternoon was passing when the reptilian guide led the visitors into an area of the city partly indoors and partly out. The outdoor area immediately fascinated the monkey-mammal crew as several people were pedaling what looked like small mechanical horses. Even one equine was doing it, his machine much larger.
Mati squinted, noticing that as hard as they pedaled, they didn’t move a centimeter. “What are they doing?”
The guide smiled with pride. “They’re helping to charge the city’s electrical batteries. Night is approaching.”
“Are they slaves?” Boro asked with a frown.
“No! Mostly they’re folks who just finished a work shift at an easy job and want some exercise. The bird over there is in physical therapy to heal an injury, which is why she’s pedaling very slowly. The equine is working out his frustrations after his mate got sent to the wilderness. He might go too, but hasn’t decided yet.”
Boro nodded his satisfaction over the slavery issue, and they wandered into a building. Several technicians, mostly avians but also a pair of nimble-handed monkeys, sat at work benches making or repairing solar panels.
“We don’t use as many of these as some cities,” the guide explained, “as we
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live in the forest and don’t want to steal the light from our precious trees, but we stick a few in each clearing. Some cities make electricity from falling water, but we don’t have any nearby.”
Ashley got a gleam in her eyes. “The planet we’re going to makes electricity by burning things.”
“Oh my god, what? ” the reptile asked with wide eyes.
“Coal, oil, Methane gas, wood, anything else they can get their hands on,”
the education specialist answered with a straight face.
“I bet they’re headed for a crash!” the guide speculated. “Of course . . . it’s none of my business . . . but I image that’s why you’re going . . .”
Ashley just smiled as the crew of the Manessa Kwi listened with keen interest.
When evening mealtime approached, Ashley and the crew were led to a large outdoor space with many long tables beneath protective tree boughs. At first, no one else was there, so they wandered around.
“I don’t see any . . . food,” Boro began with hesitation. “Should we . . . go find our own in the forest?”
The guide shook his head, and wore a slight smile, but said nothing.
Kibi found a mushroom on the forest floor that resembled an edible species on Sonmatia Three, but quickly decided that wasn’t enough with mushrooms. Rini found some berries that were a bit dry, but would keep a starving person alive.
Soon people started arriving, mostly avians and equines, but also a sprinkling of most other Satamia sapient peoples. Each carried a platter, pitcher, or bowl, with the horses lugging the biggest, brimming with fresh vegetables or fruits, sometimes both.
Twenty, thirty, forty of them set their serving dishes on the long table. The five crew members, who had never before visited a civilized planet, looked on with delight at the bounty and variety.
Soon the number of other dinner guests, and serving dishes, passed a hundred, and more were coming into the outdoor banquet hall from every direction.
What do you think? Mati wondered for only Rini to hear. Two hundred?
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Yes, and heading for three!
Their guide finally spoke. “It’s not often we get to serve the gods this directly, so you would make the citizens of Satamia City most happy if you would take a tiny bit from each serving dish.”
“But . . . we’re not gods!” Boro asserted.
“No, of course not, but you walk and talk with them, and carry out their assignments. That makes it a great honor for us to eat with you. The crew of that little cargo ship at the port got the same treatment yesterday. Only a fraction of the citizens of the city will be here today, just a thousand I think, selected randomly.”
Mati’s eyes opened wide as she wondered how she could possibly eat something from a thousand different serving dishes.
Sata smiled to herself as she looked at the small worm on her spoon, knowing that without Drrrim-na and her other avian friends, she might have offended someone by avoiding it.
Boro stopped himself after forking two slices of raw fish from the same platter onto his plate, suddenly realizing how many serving dishes he still had to visit. He was happy to find several more platters of fish farther along the tables.
Mati was taken back to a tense moment in her early days on Satamia Star Station as she took a small frog’s leg, dipping it in a savory sauce before putting it on her plate.
Rini delighted in all the leaves and stems in the big bowls brought by the equines, and discovered a tangy sauce that seemed to go well with all of them.
Kibi grinned when she found a fruit tray that reminded her of her meals with Toran Takil, Triss, and Bad Kitty.
Ilika managed to squeeze bits of nearly a hundred different foods onto his plate, then joined his crew wandering among those already seated until sparkling eyes invited them to eat with the most advanced citizens of the only true planetary civilization in a very large part of the local universe of Nebador.