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fitfully.
There was one important policy question she wanted to resolve now. "Tell
me, Born, do you and your people believe in a god?"
"A god or gods?" he replied interestedly, at least not offended by the
question.
"No, a single god. One all-powerful, all-seeing intelligence that directs
the affairs of the universe, that accounts for and plans everything."
"That implies the absence of free will," Born responded, surprising her
as he sometimes did with a very unprimitive reply.
"Some accept that, too," she admitted.
"I accept nothing of it, nor do any I know," he told her. "There is far
too much in this world for any one being to keep account of it all. And you
say there are other worlds as complex as this, too?" He smiled. "No, we do not
believe such."
At least she could go to Hansen with that much, now. It was too bad.
Belief in the existence of a single god would imply a fixed set of ethical and
moral precepts on which to base certain proposals and regulations. Spiritual
anarchy made dealings with primitive peoples more difficult. One couldn't call
on a higher authority to serve as a binding agency. Well, that was a problem
for Hansen and whatever xenosociologists the company chose to send in to deal
with Born's people. She started to turn away, then hesitated. If she could at
least plant that seed in Born's mind.
"Born, has it occurred to you that we've had incredible luck on this
journey?"
"I do not call sleeping in a silverslith's tree good luck."
"But we escaped it, Born. And there've been any one of a dozen- no,
several dozen times we could all have been killed. Yet we haven't even
suffered a minor injury, beyond the usual nicks and scrapes."
That caused him to think a minute, as she had intended. Finally he
murmured, "I am a great hunter. Losting is a good hunter, and Ruumahum and
Geeliwan are wise and experienced. Why should we not have been as successful
as we have?"
"You don't think it strange, despite the fact that five days' journey is
the longest any of your people have ever traveled from the Home before and
returned?"
"We have not yet reached our destination, or returned," he countered
quietly.
"That's so," she admitted, edging back toward her own sleeping place. "So
you don't think this implies the intervention of a guiding, watchful presence,
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like a god? One who always knows what's good for you and watches over you?"
Born looked solemn. "It did not watch over us when the Akadi came, but I
will think on it." And he turned away from her.
She had planted the seed. Satisfied with that and with what Hansen would
have to say about it, she rolled up in her cloak and closed her eyes. Not that
there were any missionaries at the station who would thank her. The station
was hardly a Church-blessed enterprise. The steady drip of ram trickling down
to this level through a million leaves and petals and stems formed a lulling
rhythm on the lean-to roof, allowing her finally to fall asleep.
"We've _got_ to go up to the top of the First Level, Born," Logan
insisted the next day.
Born shook his head. "Too dangerous to travel so much in the sky."
"No, no," she went on in exasperation. "We don't have to stick our heads
out into open air. We can stay a good twenty-five meters," and she translated
that into percentage of level for him, "below the topmost leaves. No sky-demon
is going to dive through that much brush to get at you."
"The First Level has dangers of its own," Born countered defensively.
"They are smaller than those of the Home level, but faster, harder to find and
kill before they strike."
"Look, Born," Cohoma tried to explain, "we could miss the station
completely if we travel below that point. It's constructed-like our
skimmer-out of materials set down into the forest top, but not far into it. If
we miss it and have to try and backtrack, we could get so confused as to
direction that we'd never be able to find it. We could wander around in this
jungle for years." For emphasis, he grabbed the compass, showed it again to
Born and Losting as though they could comprehend its principle. "See this
direction finder of ours? It works best the first time you hunt with it for a
place. It grows less useful with each successive failure."
Eventually Born gave in, as Logan suspected he would. Their iconoclastic
hunter had only two choices-take their advice now, or abort the journey. After
all they had been through, she did not think he would suggest the latter.
So they continued upward. Gradually this time, not in a muscle-killing
vertical climb, but on a slant. In this manner they moved forward as well as
higher, through the Fifth Level, the Fourth, and Third. She could sense their
reluctance to leave those comforting, familiar surroundings for the danger and
uncertainty of the upper canopy. Both she and Cohoma had grown so hylaea-wise
by now, however, that neither hunter attempted to fool them into believing
they had reached a higher level.
Up they mounted, through the Second Level, where the sunlight was
brilliant yellow-green, where it struck most vegetation directly and not with [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]