Remnant Population

But the core of what Bluecloak wanted to say had to do with the colony that had destroyed their nestmass, and which they had killed in shocked revenge… and these new humans, who had come because of that, who now wanted to make their rules for the People, what they could learn and what they could not. Nestmass — which meant, Ofelia thought, the nestlings and nest-guards as well as the nests themselves — were untouchable in the People’s own culture.

Bluecloak understood — they all understood — that perhaps the strange monsters from the sky hadn’t known what they destroyed. But that was an excuse no click-kaw-keerrr would accept from a nestling. To see the end of a deed in its beginning was the prime virtue — to lay a trap where only prey, not allies, walked, was the first lesson of the stalker. In all the lessons of hunting that continued: go hungry rather than kill and eat the last mother of the prey. Go thirsty rather than take water of the those who will be eaten. Leave sweet fruits on the tree for the climbers you hunt.

Ofelia understood that, but not the lengths to which the People took it. She had no training in logic; she had been taught only enough math to use the necessary manuals and work the necessary machines. She remembered seeing Bluecloak hunched over the old math textbooks; now it held one out, pointing to a long proof. That, it explained to her, was easy; its People thought in longer and more winding trails than that.

“But you…” There was no way to say tactfully that for such smart people, they hadn’t got very far. No real cities — well, she hadn’t seen the ones of the stone coast yet. But no vehicles, no big machines — she remembered something from the doomed colony tape about a catapult that threw something explosive. No big metal machines, no mechbots. No computers.

“Papiess,” Bluecloak said. If she understood him, if he understood what had happened, they considered themselves a young People, almost babies. They had once been other, only ten or twenty generations back. With the math book, with stones laid out in rows, Bluecloak conveyed that their recent ancestors could think along only few-step chains, whereas they could think along many-step chains. Something had happened; they didn’t know what. Someday they would figure it out, but in the meantime, they had other things to deal with.

Such as intrusive humans who wanted to set limits to their learning. Which brought them back to nestguardians. The good nest-guardians, Bluecloak explained, wanted the nestlings to learn all they could about everything, to be ready for — eager for — new things. Bad nest-guardians wanted to make life easy on themselves by keeping the nestlings content with sameness. These humans, Bluecloak said slowly, watching Ofelia’s face. They destroyed nestmass. Now they want to keep us from learning new things. They are bad nest-guardians. Not like you. And they do not properly respect you. It sounded as if these were equally bad.

Ofelia thought of all the times she had resented the questions her children asked, the times she had resented the intrusive curiosity of the creatures. She had been snubbed that way herself; she had been kept from learning all she could. Once she had believed that necessary. You couldn’t let children waste their time that way; they would never learn discipline if they weren’t made to learn what they needed. In her memory she saw the bright faces, the sparkling eyes, heard the eager voices… and she remembered how they had changed, how she had changed, all that curiosity and eagerness settling into a mold of passive obedience, more or less sullen depending on how much the child had to abandon. “I was not a good nest-guardian for my children,” she said. The baby in her lap stirred, and grabbed her thumb with both its hands. She looked down, and stroked the line of knobs along its back. She was a good nest-guardian now, Bluecloak said. And mothers were not nest-guardians anyway. Only the old, those who were no longer nesting mothers, who understood things, were nest-guardians. Perhaps she had not had the right nest-guardians to help her.

“Not fathers?”

“Nnott” No more explanation. Qfelia could see where mothers — grandmothers — if they were still physically strong and able, would know things about babies and children that the men she knew would not. But these were not human, and she could not assume that their fathers had limitations. If they even had fathers… Bluecloak had still not explained how they reproduced. They trusted Ofelia, Bluecloak went on. She was a nest-guardian; she had proved herself so with Gurgleclick-cough’s nesting; the nestlings accepted her. Bluecloak could sing for her, but only the nest-guardian could make the agreement when all the People could not drum together, because of distance. “Agreement?”