CHAPTER 1
The street called the Ring circles the city of Ayaviz just atop the iron walls which hold back the ice sheet and the sea. Two huge machines endlessly follow the street around the edge of the city, using invisible beams of heat to clear fallen snow from a belt a hundred meters wide, all around the city. For that reason nobody can build anything permanent on the Ring, which means that, almost alone among the streets of Ayaviz, it is broad and unobstructed, a natural marketplace.
Traders and vendors put up stalls and tents in the wake of the ice-burners and do business until the second giant crawls along, a little more than eight and a half hours later. The city never rests, but all living things must, so when the Ring empties out and the machines pass, new merchants come afterward to replace the ones who left. On a world where the sun sits immobile in the sky, the passage of the ice-burners gives Ayaviz something like a daily cycle.
When the great machine moves silently into view around the curve of the city, the vendors hurry to pack up their stalls and carts. They toss all their refuse onto the smooth surface of the road, where everything gets swept up as the ice-burner passes. The packing-up time attracts bargain hunters, eager to haggle when the vendors can’t linger, and scavengers who pick through the refuse.
A human boy named Arkad picked his way through the clear lane down the middle of the roadway, prodding at trash with his feet and occasionally picking things up. He was thin and very dirty, dressed in a tattered blanket wrapped around his body toga-style, with layers and layers of cloth and plastic sheeting on his feet. His black hair was a mass of tangles, but his face was cheerful and his eyes were bright.
So far he had acquired some string, a couple of sheets of waterproof plastic, and a handful of frozen larvae. Most of the discarded food items—like the larvae thawing in his hand—were things he couldn’t eat, but the ones that looked fresh enough might be traded. He had not eaten since the other ice-burner had passed this part of the Ring, and was hoping to find something to fill his stomach.
Nearby a pair of Pfifu loaded trays of fresh seafood on ice into their cart, which was itself built in the shape of a mythical sea creature on wheels, with brightly colored cloth tentacles on top which fluttered in the cold wind. Arkad hadn’t seen that cart around before, which suggested they were new in town. One of them was male, the other female, and Arkad guessed they were mates as well as partners; Pfifu typically combined business and reproduction. Their seafood was stuff he could eat, so he lingered nearby, hoping they might discard something.
Arkad looked over his shoulder at the oncoming ice-burner. It was about fifty meters away, sliding forward at a relentless ten centimeters per second. This seemed like a good moment to make his move. He approached the cart.
“You tell me do you need help,” he said in the city pidgin, a mishmash of loan words that half a dozen species could pronounce, more or less.
“No,” said the female, and went back to work, folding up the tent. A chilly gust made her exposed tentacles go pale for a moment.
“You can not eat all that,” said Arkad. “Fish will spoil soon.” The ice-burner closed the distance by a couple of meters as they spoke. The machine was big and boxy, its slab sides brushing the buildings on the inner side of the Ring and overhanging the city’s edge on the outside. On its flat top, a spherical turret gazed endlessly outward, and sometimes the airborne dust in front of the turret glowed blue-white when the invisible beam caught it. Its base seemed to touch the ground solidly, with no gap at all.
As it moved steadily forward, Arkad could see the front edge conform perfectly to every curve and bump in the road, every scrap of debris. Anything left on the street, living or dead, vanished under the machine, and what happened after that was a mystery. The popular belief in Ayaviz was that the burners used everything they swept up as fuel for their heat beams; it was certainly true that they never needed unloading or recharging.
The most alarming thing about the ice-burner was not its size but its silence. It made no sound as it crept along, and despite its bulk, the road did not tremble. Puddles on the pavement didn’t even ripple as it approached. Its movement was barely noticeable if Arkad watched it steadily, but when he glanced away and then looked back, the machine seemed to jump forward in a way that was very disturbing.
Only a few laggards were left in this stretch of the market, and people of the neighborhood were tossing trash and poisonous wastes onto the Ring to be swept up by the burner.
“We have kin, and folk who live near us,” said the male, who was already done cleaning off the grill. “They eat what we do not sell. But if you help us move the cart, I will tell you a thing you want to hear.”
“Hurry, spouse, like a rocket ascending into the sky,” said his mate in the Pfifu language of tentacle gestures and whistles, which Arkad could understand but not speak. “I urge you to pack up the fish as securely as locking up a treasure, without standing idly wasting irreplaceable time with that ungainly creature.” The burner had closed to eighteen meters while they spoke.
“You tell me what is that thing I should hear,” Arkad asked. What could a couple of back-country Pfifu tell him that he didn’t already know?
“I will tell you when we move the cart.”
“You tell me and give me two small fish for my help,” said Arkad.
“One fish,” said the male. “Take down pole and put on cart.”
“Fool,” said the female in pidgin. She climbed onto the cart and pulled the tent up after her. The ice-burner was only twelve meters off.
“Gentle companion, I am tired and cold, and if the poor creature can help us accomplish our task swiftly, then I am willing to part with a spare fish or two that would otherwise only return lifeless to the sea which birthed them and some miscellaneous trivia of no value to anyone. I encourage you not to leave that rope behind,” said the male to the female in their own language.
Arkad had no trouble getting the tent pole (it was aluminum, sculpted like braided vines) out of its base, and found the little latch where it folded in half, then handed it up to the female. The male dragged the pole’s base aboard, and then the two Pfifu wrapped their long upper tentacles around the cart ropes and began pulling the whole thing toward a nearby alley.
The ice-burner was less than five meters away. Its massive front loomed over them, still approaching in absolute silence. Arkad threw his shoulder against the back of the cart, pushing as hard as he could. His feet in their dirty wrappings couldn’t find much purchase on the smooth damp road, but he put all his weight into it and the cart slipped into the alley with at least four seconds to spare before the flat side of the ice-burner slid past.
“Fish,” said Arkad to the male. “And tell me the thing.”
“First you tell me what you are.”
“Human,” said Arkad, saying the word slowly and carefully. “From world with name of Earth.”
“Feeufa from Eeauf,” said the male, unable to manage the troublesome consonants. He scrambled up onto the cart and tossed a fish down to Arkad. It smelled a little far gone already, but cooking would fix that. “A short time past I saw three of your kind in this town.”
In an instant the boy’s skepticism was replaced by a desperate urgency. “You tell me where.”
“Here on the Ring, when we set up the cart,” said the male Pfifu, and gestured, “The city is full of strange creatures, and it is not worth my time to keep track of them.” Its tentacles were still forming the last shapes of that remark as Arkad turned and ran.
The alley was narrow and cluttered with debris. The only light came from the glow of the sky above, a dim band between the tall towers that stretched up from the city’s iron base. Here and there the sky was blocked altogether by rickety platforms and nets suspended between the alley walls.
Arkad ran, ducking around pedestrians and hopping over puddles, barely noticing. Humans! Here in Ayaviz!
He left the alley and turned into one of the main avenues. The beings in the street were a cross section of the inhabitants of Ayaviz. Vziim slithered along, usually in groups led by a wealthy elder on a power-cart. They had long, dark, legless bodies covered in short dense fur, with four thick arms spaced evenly around their heads. Vziim ignored Arkad, or at least pretended to.
Pfifu stumped along on their four lower tentacles if they had anything to carry, or swung along from overhead ropes and girders if their upper tentacles were free. Their bodies were as long and thick as Arkad’s leg, and their skin shifted color and pattern.
Itooti flew past, or rode in bunches on overloaded scooters. They were small, with leathery wings wider than Arkad’s outstretched arms, and four other limbs. They darted their barbed prehensile tongues at each other. The ones who knew him called out boasts and friendly insults.
A scattering of aliens from offworld moved among the natives: tall Roon traders in elaborate robes, a tentacled being with a barrel-shaped body riding in a wheeled environment tank, a hairy thing with six skinny limbs, and an orderly line of rainbow-feathered bipeds with prehensile tails.
There were no humans. There never were.
Ayaviz was too big and crowded for Arkad to search by himself. If there were other humans in town, someone would know of it. He stopped running long enough to think about where to start.
The closest place to begin finding out was the house of Tatoota, the mother of his friend Tiatatoo. As long as his mother was single, Tiatatoo would likely be there, and Arkad could get all the latest gossip from him. But if Tatoota had a new lover, all her male children would stay far away, and any reminder of their existence—such as Arkad—would be unwelcome.
Arkad ran along the avenue until he found a dangling rope, which he began to climb hand over hand. The rope took him ten meters up to a platform, where a crude ladder extended up to the roof of a low tower. From the top of the tower, he followed a rope bridge across two streets to a broken dome, climbed up another ladder to a gallery lashed to the dark side of a bigger tower, and finally up fifty meters of rope to the home of Tatoota.
Tatoota’s house was typical Itooti engineering: a mess of scavenged struts and cord lashed to the side of a much more solid building constructed by somebody else. Layers of tarps and blankets kept out the chill, and heat came from a fire of scraps in a steel drum with a crude flue sticking out the top. Just about all the city’s towers had scores of Itooti constructions sticking to their sides, like parasitic growths. Others hung from cables over the streets, and the undersides of all the upper-level streets were thickly encrusted with them. They burned up or fell down fairly often, and from time to time, the owners of the big towers would send out crews to clear them off the exterior, but the Itooti always came back.
Before going in, he looked around as he always did. From up here he could see Ayaviz spread out around him. The base of the city was a perfect circle, walled with steel. Within that ring, the ancient builders—whoever they were—had put up various strange industrial structures: windowless metal towers, giant conduits, big spheres and cubes of gray metal. Those structures were all still active, fulfilling whatever mysterious purpose they had been built for. The machinery extended down kilometers below the city now, still digging new shafts and tunnels.
From time to time the rest of the city felt the effects of whatever those machines were doing. Arkad could remember once when all the metal in Ayaviz had become too hot to touch for nearly an hour. Another time one of the featureless cubes gave off a buzzing sound which shattered windows. Nobody interfered with the ancient machines; the only thing that ever accomplished was the destruction of whoever tried it.
The machines had been there forever, apparently. The Psthao-psthao had come to the planet Syavusa millennia ago, and found the surface of the world dotted with mysterious constructions. A community of them settled in the warm dark tunnels of the city they named Hoasfeoth.
Vziim followed and put up their towers of brick and concrete, overshadowing the ancient machines, and in some cases, incorporating them into the new structures. They renamed the city Ayaviz, which was as close as they could come to the Psthao-psthao word, and built a harbor and spaceport, turning an isolated outpost into the planet’s gateway.
Pfifu arrived a few centuries later, building their own low, rambling structures, encrusted with decoration or actually shaped like fantastic monsters, around the bases of the Vziim towers and the old machines. They created factories and workshops, and pronounced the name Ayafif. In recent years the numbers of Pfifu had expanded as they fled their home planet, so that their pronunciation would probably become the standard in another generation.
The Itooti were the most recent arrivals, still living in the shells and crevices of other people’s buildings, working for Vziim merchants and Pfifu manufacturers. Among themselves, they called the city Aitateet, and someday that might be the common name for the place.
There were other species—AaaAa in the forests along the edge of the ice cap, silent five-finned beings with pincers down in the ocean, and doubtless many others Arkad had never seen. Exiles fled to Syavusa from all over, because there was nobody to keep them away. Nobody ruled Syavusa. Yet somehow no conquerors ever came, no interstellar powers claimed the world. Arkad didn’t know why, and didn’t really wonder about it.
Beyond the city to the east, the ice cap stretched away into darkness. A line of lights marked the railway, and on the horizon, Arkad could make out a flickering glow from the refineries and workshops around the spaceport. To the west, between the towers that blocked the sunlight, he could just glimpse the ocean, studded with ice floes. Warm currents and the city’s own waste heat kept the bay ice-free, and someone had cut docking slips out of the rocky shores of the inlet near the city. Right on the rim of the ocean, the sun sat unmoving, a shining red half-disk.
As Arkad looked that way, he saw a bright star leap up from the sun’s glare, moving swiftly upward until it passed right overhead. It dropped down in the east and winked out just before touching the horizon. A spaceship in orbit—a big one, judging from how brightly it shone in the sunlight.
Arkad’s yearning to leave the planet was almost a physical force. For a moment, he wanted to just leap off the tower and follow the spaceship away from Syavusa.
A gust of cold wind out of the eastern darkness nearly blew Arkad off the rope. He turned and poked his head through the entry flap of Tatoota’s house and called out in the Itooti language, which he could speak with some fluency. “Friendly Arkad wonders who is in the snug home.”
To his relief he heard his friend answer. “Generous Tiatatoo welcomes homeless Arkad.”
Tiatatoo dropped down from the spot near the ceiling where he had been hanging. With his wings folded, he could have perched on Arkad’s shoulder—Itooti males seldom weighed more than five or ten kilos. “Lonely Tiatatoo suggests gentle Arkad come view the adorable babies.”
On one side of the stove, Tiatatoo’s mother had created a kind of corral for her latest brood. There were half a dozen of them, small enough to fit in Arkad’s hand, their wings still stubby and covered with fuzz.
“Curious Arkad wonders if the healthy babies have personal names,” asked Arkad.
“Sensible Tatoota has not given her feeble new babies individual names yet,” said Tiatatoo. “When the strong children learn to fly, proud Tatoota will give them impressive names.”
One of the baby males darted his sharp little tongue at Tiatatoo, who pressed his own much bigger barb to the little one’s belly, forcing him down onto his back.
“Anxious Arkad hopes affectionate Tiatatoo doesn’t hurt his tiny brother,” said Arkad. He handed Tiatatoo one of the females to distract him, and stroked the male’s downy belly to make sure Tiatatoo hadn’t pierced the skin.
“The vigorous little male will seduce many adoring females if the annoying infant survives,” said Tiatatoo, flicking his tongue at his little half-brother once more. He turned to Arkad. “Proud Tiatatoo has important news!”
“Solitary Arkad is eager to hear well-connected Tiatatoo’s interesting news.”
For an instant his young Itooti friend cocked his head in puzzlement, but then continued anyway. “Soft-furred Atett flew to meet brightly colored Tiatatoo and hear him recite seductive verses. Vigorous and passionate mating ensued. Soon, fertile Atett will bear a numerous litter of exceptional offspring!”
“Sincere Arkad is glad to hear virile Tiatatoo’s wonderful news,” he said.
“Devoted Atett will build a secure and comfortable home,” said Tiatatoo. “Generous Tiatatoo assures helpful Arkad that he will always be a welcome guest.”
“Happy Arkad wishes both affectionate lovers a prolonged pairing.” Arkad was genuinely happy for his friend—but it came with a new pang of loneliness. Tiatatoo could pair off with the lovely Atett and raise a brood of fuzzy children, but Arkad would be alone as long as he stayed on Syavusa.
Time to get straight to the point. “Desperate Arkad wonders if wide-ranging Tiatatoo has heard any interesting news concerning exotic humans in smoky Ayaviz.”
Tiatatoo looked away in the ancient negative gesture. “All-seeing Tiatatoo has heard no recent report of remarkable humans. Baffled Tiatatoo wonders why excited Arkad asks.”
“Two observant Pfifu selling tasty fish claimed to have seen three apparent humans recently.”
“Gullible Arkad should remember how often dishonest Pfifu invent false stories.”
“Determined Arkad intends to continue searching for the hypothetical humans. Persistent Arkad wonders if handsome Tiatatoo knows where to find shrewd Zvev.”
Zvev wasn’t exactly Arkad’s friend; she was a Vziim and, outside their families, Vziim didn’t have friends, only temporary allies. Like him, she was an orphan, surviving on the streets of Ayaviz through scavenging, odd jobs, and petty crime. Her quick wits and sheer muscle made her the de facto boss of the little gang made up of Arkad, Tiatatoo, Zvev, and a Pfifu named Fuee. She always seemed to know about everything going on in the city.
The trick was finding her. Zvev claimed to be the daughter of a wealthy tower-building matriarch, unfairly defrauded of her rightful inheritance and hunted by the minions of her greedy half-sisters. Arkad had his doubts about the story, but kept them to himself. Whatever the real reason, she kept her hiding places secret, and liked to appear and disappear without warning. If Tiatatoo didn’t know where she was, Arkad would have to wait until she found him.
A gust of cold wind swept through the little house as Tiatatoo’s mother, Tatoota, returned with a basket of food for the babies.
“Tolerant Tatoota is glad to see ever-present Arkad,” she told him.
“Grateful Arkad thanks kind Tatoota for her generous hospitality,” he answered.
“Harried Tatoota would appreciate some welcome aid in the tiresome feeding of her hungry children,” she said, handing him some strips of meat.
“Eager Arkad will help.”
“The tough meat must be made soft before the weak babies can eat.” She took a strip in her own mouth and rasped it with the sides of her tongue before spitting the chewed meat into the mouth of an eager baby.
Arkad followed suit. The meat was raw, so he was careful not to swallow any. Cooked Itooti food was delicious, but if it wasn’t well-done it gave him diarrhea and monumental flatulence. He chewed the strip vigorously and then held it in his teeth for one of the little females to snatch away.
He finished with the first strip and took a second. He could see Tiatatoo watching from where he clung to a support rope over the stove. A young male Itooti would rather cut off his wings than be seen feeding infants.
Chewing the meat for the infants reminded Arkad of how hungry he was. The uneaten fish tucked into his blanket would start to spoil soon—if it wasn’t too far gone already. He didn’t have enough to share, and didn’t want to ask Tatoota for anything—she was a resource he was saving for a real emergency.
So when the last of the meat had gone into the hungry little mouths, and Tiatatoo’s half-siblings dozed in a heap next to the stove, Arkad slipped out of the house and descended to the street. Maybe he would find Zvev, maybe he would find the humans. But first he would eat.
As he walked along, Arkad kept his eyes open for scraps which might make a good fire. From uncomfortable experience, he knew that while the Pfifu could happily eat the local seafood raw, his own stomach would only tolerate uncooked fish if it was perfectly fresh.
When he had enough fuel, he climbed onto the stump of a ruined wall in a convenient alley and put the flammable trash into a hollow between the bricks, then squeezed a tiny drop from the bottle of firestarter he’d found many markets ago. The liquid burst into flame on contact with the fuel, and soon he had a steady if smoky fire.
Arkad’s only cooking utensil was a skewer—which also served him as a toothpick, personal-defense weapon, and digging tool. He slid the fish onto the skewer and broiled it until the skin was completely blackened and the tips of the fins were starting to catch fire. Then he brushed away the burnt skin and gnawed at the steaming flesh.
He took his time about it, eating all the meat, picking out the edible entrails, and finally sucking the thin bones clean. Only when everything human-edible was in his stomach did he toss the remains into the fire, enjoying the warmth until it burned down to ashes.
Four short but massive arms gripped his torso from behind, and he felt himself hoisted into the air, to dangle helplessly four meters above the ground. He glanced up and recognized Zvev holding him. Her long tail was wrapped securely around a pipe which spanned the alley a couple of meters higher up.
“I have caught prey to eat,” she said. “But it is too thin, all bone and no meat. I will toss it back.” She lowered him to the ground and then slid down beside him. “Tell me why you seek me.”
“I need to know if there are more of my folk here in Ayaviz,” he said. “A Pfifu said he saw three.”
Zvev reared back and regarded him. Vziim faces were always immobile anyway, but she was even more unreadable than usual. “You tell me why you want to know that.”
“I want to meet them.”
“You tell me why I should help,” she said.
Because you are my friend was what Arkad did not say. “I want to leave this place,” he told her. “If I can go with them, you can have all my stuff.”
“Small gain for me,” she said, “but I will tell you what I learn.” She turned to go, then stopped. “You tell me why you wish to leave.”
For a moment Arkad had trouble putting it all into words. If she didn’t understand, how could he explain it? “There is no one like me here,” he said. “I wish to live with folk like me.”
“They may look like you but they are not your kin,” she said. “You have no kin on or off this world. With no kin, you will have to get by on your own.”
“I still want to go. It is hard to be the sole one of my kind.”
“You are a fool. There are a lot of Vziim here but none are like me. All who live are the sole one of their kind.” She clacked her claws together. “I will tell you if I hear of them.” She slid over the wall and, in an instant, Arkad was alone in the alley again.
The fish and his brief rest had restored Arkad’s energy, and his encounter with Zvev made him want to demonstrate that he didn’t need her help. So he got to his feet and thought. What was the most likely place in Ayaviz for newly arrived humans to be?
They must have come from offworld, which means they had landed at the spaceport, off to the east on the dark ice. From there, all offworlders rode the rail line into Ayaviz, so the neighborhood around the rail terminal was the best place to start.
That part of town was a mix of cheap housing for new arrivals, expensive hotels for rich travelers, and lots of markets selling offworld merchandise to locals and local goods to offworlders. The really important deals were made in the wide streets on either side of the rail line, where road tractors hauling strings of wagons could pull up. There, Vziim and Itooti traders haggled with Roon and other aliens, making bids on cargoes and shouting out what they had to exchange, all while Pfifu crane operators swung containers between the wagons and the trains.
Arkad stood in the square in front of the terminal and turned slowly around. If he was newly arrived on Syavusa, where would he go first? A prudent traveler would find food and a place to sleep before doing anything else.
To his left was a jumble of whimsical-looking Pfifu buildings, all devoted in some way to the road-tractor business—repair shops, fuel stations, and bathing-houses where Pfifu tractor drivers gathered to soak in hot scented seawater and watch satirical puppet shows.
Straight ahead was Eviavo’s tower, a smooth, six-sided spire clad in thick glass, which tapered straight up from a broad base to a needle tip three hundred meters above the ground. Six smaller spires only a hundred meters high surrounded it, and graceful bridges connected them to the main tower at their tips. Eviavo and her siblings tolerated the usual clutter of Itooti construction on the subsidiary towers, but had made it clear—with flame-projectors—that the main tower was to remain pristine. Only the wealthiest visitors could afford rooms there.
On the right was Aviiva’s tower, a handsome four-sided structure of steel with a skin of thin-sliced white stone. It rose in a series of setbacks to a height of two hundred meters. That was tall enough to catch some direct sunlight at the top, so the upper floors supported a wide flower of solar panels and some twirling wind generators. Below that the building was a random combination of residences, workshops, offices, storage space, and hotel rooms. That was where the more budget-conscious offworlders wound up.
How rich were these visiting humans? Arkad knew that even the cheapest fare aboard a starship, risking cold sleep to save the ruinous life-support charges, cost at least thirty kilos of platinum. Just being here meant they were rich. Didn’t it?
Well, if nothing else, Eviavo’s tower was nicer looking, so he decided to start there. The shabby-looking alien boy attracted a great many odd looks in the market that occupied the two bottom floors of the tower—almost certainly because the vendors here were selling some of the most expensive merchandise on the planet. One could buy genomes from offworld, or sculptures by legendary Pfifu artists, or cargoes of thorium in other star systems, or real estate, or Machine Civilization devices which defied the laws of nature. Buyers and sellers alike were old, well-dressed, and unmistakably rich.
Arkad saw one ancient Vziim female on a power-cart, whose entire body, from her arms to the tip of her tail, was wrapped in helical strands of gold. He also slowed to goggle at a pair of aliens of some species he didn’t recognize; they were taller than he was and seemed to consist of nothing but a dozen spindly legs and a small globular head on top.
He heard a flutter of wings and his Itooti friend Tiatatoo landed on his shoulder, then poked him in the ear with his tongue. “Oblivious Arkad is being followed.”
The boy didn’t react, but kept up his slow strolling pace as they passed a shop selling psychoactive bath salts for Pfifu. “Embarrassed Arkad did not notice, and tense Arkad hopes keen-eyed Tiatatoo will reveal the current location of the mysterious pursuer.”
“Reckless Arkad should look between the overpriced claw-trimming parlor and the rapacious gene-buyer office.”
He turned around, as if he was watching a passing Pfifu carrying a basket of electronic components, then glanced at the spot Tiatatoo had described. The spot between the two shops was a small alcove lined with deep red tiles, sheltering some thick blue and white pipes carrying water and compressed air up into the tower above. Only because he had been told someone was there could Arkad notice the figure standing in the niche. It was about his own height, wearing a hooded cloak that reached to the floor. The cloak was the same deep red as the tile wall, with wide blue and white stripes that aligned with the pipes. He could just make out the dark opening at the front of the thing’s hood, and glimpsed a pale face within.
It was a human face.