World without Stars by Poul Anderson

Author:Poul Anderson [ANDERSON, POUL]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Science fiction
ISBN: 978-1-4976-9421-7
Publisher: Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Published: 2011-09-14T16:00:00+00:00

XI

WE CAME to Prasiyo in darkness, and left in darkness, so to me it was only torches, shadows, sad strange noise of a horn blown somewhere out in the night. Afterward I saw it by day, and others like it; and as I became able to ask more intelligent questions, the Niao I met could give me better answers. Thus I learned a great deal, and never in my traveling have I met a society more outlandish.

But that’s for the xenological files. Here I’ll just say that Prasiyo wasn’t a town, in the sense of a community where beings lived in some kind of mutual-interest relationship, with some feeling of common tradition. Prasiyo was only a name for that lakefront area where the docks happened to be. This made it convenient to locate certain workshops nearby. So the igloo-shaped huts of the Niao clustered a bit thereabouts—unlike in the wide, wet agricultural region that stretched behind Lake Silence, on and on to the ocean. Yes, and still further, because there were Niao who had been bred for pelagiculture too.

The Pack maintained a true community, in those lairs where Valland was now a prisoner. Later we found that there were other savages, in other wild parts of the world, who did likewise. Some of them had progressed to building little villages. But the Niao, who appeared to be civilized, had nothing of the kind anywhere. For they were the Herd, and herds don’t create nations.

Neither do gods.

Our galley didn’t go to the wharf. Instead, we moored alongside a structure built some distance offshore: a square, massive stone pile that loomed over us in the night like a thundercloud. Lanterns picked out soldier Niao guarding the ramparts. Helmeted and corseleted, armed with knives, pikes, bows, catapults, they stood as if they were also stone. Gianyi and three fellow scribes conducted us off ship, in a stillness so deep that the gangplank seemed to drum beneath our feet. The blind dwarf scuttled after us. They all bent low in reverence to the gate.

“What is this?” I asked.

“The house that is kept for the Ai Chun, when they choose to visit us here,” Gianyi said mutedly. “You are honored. No less than two of them have come to see you.”

I had a last glimpse of the galaxy before we entered. The sight had always appeared unhuman to me before—lovely, but big and remote and indifferent. Now it was the one comfort I had.

Lamps burned dim down the wet, echoing length of a hall. There was no ornament, no furniture, only the great gray blocks. We passed through an archway into a room. It was too broad and feebly lit for me to see the end, although I had my goggles on. Most of the floor was occupied by a pool. I conjectured rightly that this place must connect with the lake by submarine passages.

The downdevils lay in the water.

A physical description would sound like any amphibious race. They were pinnipeds of a sort, about twice the length and several times the bulk of men.

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