Her lessers had returned with reports on the cell cultures harvested from the Late Invaders. The Late Invaders had similar methods of genomic patterning methods. Was DNA a universal, then? Memor knew that it was not. But they could come from one of the Seed Worlds the Ancients reportedly tried to fertilize.

Memor wondered if these Late Invaders could genetically engineer tools and machines not to degrade in a biosphere. The Ancients had bequeathed enzymes to synthesize devices, so the World grew apparatus needed by the Folk.

Turning sunlight and water into machines was the Higher Way, and these Late Invaders did not seem to have mastered that pathway to greatness. They might be able to edit genes, or transplant them to another crop; such was simple. But their devices did not have the elegant cast of grown apparatuses. So they quite probably ate simple foods, too, and lived lives of primitive needs. Yet built ramscoops.

Memor pondered this and decided to try fish. She ordered admitted to their ample cage some varieties with appropriate chemistries. No need to not be generous, after all. They should be made comfortable in their final days.

SIXTEEN

Coarse, smelly, wet soil stretched away, embedded in a gray metal mesh. You couldn’t call it the ground, Beth thought, not in almost zero gravity, not with a straight face. More like a sheet of stucco with plants growing in it. The stuff ran away from them in muddy sheets for what looked like thousands of kilometers.

She had climbed into one of the spindly, triangular trees and surveyed the landscape. The soaring fence was far off, tens of kilometers. Beth judged that it ran up as far as the plastic sky. “It’s as if they’ve imprisoned us in a dull, wet, brown Australia,” Mayra said. “Lots of room. Lots of space to hide.”

Abduss grumbled, “We’re about to starve to death, too.”

“Working on it,” his wife said, grinning.

Lau Pin said, “Let’s at least get out of these damn suits. We can do a better splint job on Tananareve.”

In the early, fractured talk the big one in charge identified itself as Astronomer—a rank, apparently. She—definitely a She, a slit wreathed by crimson feathers—used star charts and pictures to make the point, assisted by slowly pronounced words in their language of grunts, call, piping songs. The Fourth Variety of locals Beth called Porters. Like other varieties, they were feathered like flightless birds, but built more like lizards. Their limbs and toes were long and limber. In the near free fall here, they were still flightless, but they could leap long distances. The Astronomer, whose “close-name” was Memor, had shown them this right away. Beth thought this might have been some kind of display to instill submission; certainly the long, hooting calls Memor gave sounded joyous and dominant. Most of the other Astronomers wore harnesses, and used them for carrying.

The big Third Variety who led them was a hunter. Was the alien a he—or she? Where were the genitalia? Anus under the tail, just like Earth’s birds. Call it he, then—he carried a long-tubed gun and gleaming, curved knives. He looked like an efficient killer.

They never went past the fence. The Porters did the carrying. In short order they came straggling back with small corpses and bigger slabs of meat—and roots and fruit and grain and twigs, all gathered at the Astronaut’s direction.

The Astronomer had big, nimble four-fingered hands, though she wasn’t doing much with them. Porters did most of the work, and their long hands were dextrous too. They laid their loot in a pattern, a long arc, plants to the left, meat to the right. Swallowing saliva, stomach rumbling, Beth waited for them to finish.

The Porters backed away. The Astronomer came ambling forward, and she was huge. It amazed Beth that she could pick up such little things with her long, jerky arms: bunches of grain, a ravaged muskratlike corpse, a small globe that looked like a striped melon. The moving mountain picked up something and grunted or trilled, raised it toward her huge, thick-lipped mouth and made a warbling, keening sound—the same sound each time for that gesture.

“Eat?” Beth wondered aloud. The Astronomer made a deep bass sound. Gestured with an arm.

They were being taught.

Until Lau Pin snarled a curse, stalked forward under the Astronomer, and reached up.

People froze. Beth waited for him to die.

The Astronomer dropped the little melon.

Lau Pin caught the melon. He held it up and brandished a knife big enough for killing. “Melon. Knife.” He cut the melon, “Cut,” and bit into the slice. “Good,” he called back. Buried his face in the orange flesh. “Eat.” Lau Pin jogged back, turning his back on the Astronomer, and cut a slice for Tananareve. “Give. Eat,” he said, and she did.

They all did. Eagerly.

Each time Lau Pin spoke, the huge feathered Astronomer replied with a bellow and a gesture, his long fingers tracing curves in the air. Those might be easier to repeat than the sounds, Beth thought. She noticed that Tananareve was awake and paying rigid attention. Her hands moved in response to the Astronomer’s Sign language.

*   *   *

The Astronomers also included some called Astronauts, who seemed to be those who could patrol the vicinity of this place. They were big, lumbering sorts who barely noticed the humans. They hooted at one another in long, rolling calls.

But more important, the principal Astronomer had buckled her knees in what seemed to be good-bye, and gestured: She had left them their tools.

That seemed amazing to Beth. Lau Pin had used a knife and he still had it. That was reassuring. Beth tried something else.

She chose a slab of red meat—“Steak,” she pronounced it, optimistically—and set it on a rock. “Beamer,” she said, and held up a microwave projector. They’d tried to use it to cut through the wall of the aliens’ air lock. She plugged it into her backpack power. Turned low, it cooked the meat in a few seconds. They set the beamer aside, cut up the meat, and ate. Beth carefully plugged the beamer into its solar panel charger. The meat tasted wonderful and in her hunger she forgot about the alien.

Mayra and Fred, of course, were photographing everything with their cell phones, and now so was Lau Pin. Good. The power wouldn’t run out for months.

When they were finished, they still had the beamer. And several knives, Abduss’s gun, and the pressure suit helmets. We must look pretty harmless, Beth thought wonderingly. A matter of size?

Abduss stretched, yawned, and said, “I’m wiped.”

With her belly full, Beth suddenly felt the wave of exhaustion. She thought, Don’t be silly, it’s only … well, duh. The sun was at sunset, vertical to the glassy wall and horizontal to wet soil embedded in a coarse mesh, and it wasn’t going to set. Ever.

She called to the Astronaut, “Sleep,” and to her companions, “Sleep.”

Memor spoke a word. She watched, and when she saw her captives turn unresponsive, she turned toward the air lock. Beth tried to watch her, but her legs dragged. She felt soooo very tired.…

So did the others, she could see. It was logical. They were trapped, depressed, so took refuge in sleep. It made sense. Let their unconscious selves sort out all the new, strange, and alarming. No reason to fight it.

SEVENTEEN

They had a long slog through the rumpled hills. That took days. Without more understanding, they had no plan, no destination. They needed to learn. But without a goal, Cliff knew, morale would evaporate. Even fear, which was driving them now, would ebb.

When they got tired, Cliff called a rest. Nobody argued. They soaked their hats with water and put them over their faces, falling asleep instantly. Gratefully.

*   *   *

They stirred themselves nine hours later, but without breakfast. Food was short.