Footfall

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.

“Dunno,” Dawson said. “The body recirculates. Maybe they think the soul does too.”

“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.