I looked at Derek. He was staring at the view. The sky was clearing. Sunlight edged the clouds, and the colors of the valley were even more brilliant than before. “Why?” I asked.
He turned. I knew that expression, the lifted eyebrows and the twisted grin. Derek was planning something that was either frivolous or dangerous. And he wanted my approval. The charm had gone on. I had no idea how he did it, but it was as dramatic as a light rod beginning to glow. His smile widened.
“Derek, stop it! Turn it off!”
“What?”
“The masculine beauty, the charm, the sexiness.” I had switched to English. Nia began to frown.
“I want to take a look at that lake,” Derek said. He was speaking the language of gifts. His voice was low and even. A reasonable voice. The voice of sanity. “I think I can make it there and back before the light is entirely gone.”
“I doubt it, and I think you’re crazy to try. That is a very active area down there. The ground is probably hot, and it may not be reliable. It may be a crust over something ugly. You could go through. You could end up in the soup, and I am being more literal than metaphoric.”
“Speak our language,” Nia said. “I am interested in this argument.”
“Okay. I’m telling Derek not to go into the valley.”
“You won’t change his mind,” the oracle said.
Derek laughed. “He’s right. Give in, Lixia. There is no point in talking. I’m going to go.”
I made the gesture that meant “so be it.” “Take your boots.”
“Why? I move more quickly with bare feet.”
“I told you. I think the ground is hot.” I bent to the side, raising one arm. With the other arm I reached down toward my ankle, then closed my eyes, concentrating on my breathing. In. Out. So. Hum. O jewel of the lotus.
I straightened up and opened my eyes. Derek was on his way: a small dark figure scrambling through the pseudo-grass, a good distance off already. Beyond him and below him was the valley.
Nia unsaddled the bowhorns. We built a fire under the overhang. Dinner was the last of the pseudo-dinosaur.
“Why did he go?” Nia asked.
“I have no idea. He does these things. Not often.” I paused. I wanted to say, most of the time he plays by the rules. But I didn’t know the native word for “play.” I said, “Most of the time, he does what is expected.”
Nia finished a piece of meat. She tossed the bone into the fire. “All men are crazy in one way or another.”
The oracle made the gesture of agreement.
I stared out at the evening sky. The Great Moon was up. It was more than half-full now, and it looked to be—what?—three quarters the size of Luna when Luna was seen from the Skyline Drive in Duluth on a midsummer night.
Why didn’t I know the word for “play”? I looked at Nia. “What is the word for what children do when they throw a ball?”
“It is called ‘fooling around.’ ”
Well, yes. That made sense. That was one meaning of “play.” But it had other meanings, too. I thought of Hamlet and the triple play, though I wasn’t entirely sure what the triple play was. And swordplay. Hamlet and Laertes, for example. And musicians playing their instruments. What I needed was the O.E.D. Eddie had access to the language computers. I reached for the radio, turning it on.
I got a computer again. The same program as before. I recognized the accent and the tone of distant courtesy. There was more static than usual. The cool voice came through a constant faint crackling, like fire.
I asked for a definition of “play.”
“Just a moment,” the computer said.
I heard the usual noises that computers made when working: a beep, followed by a series of chirps, and then by a bell-like tone. A new voice—another program—told me what “play” meant in English.
This voice was male and had a Chinese accent.
When it finished I thanked it and turned the radio off.
“What is that thing?” asked the oracle.
Nia leaned forward. “Li-sa told me about it. It is a way to talk to people who are beyond the horizon.”
“Oh. I thought it might be a musical instrument. It makes a lot of different kinds of noise, and some of them are pleasant.”
“What do you do with a musical instrument?” I asked.
The oracle frowned. “What do you mean?”
“What is the word for using it. For making it make a noise.”
“Oh. Nakhtu.”
“That is in his language,” said Nia. “In the language of gifts, it is nahu.”
“Is that like fooling around?” I asked.
“No. Of course not. Children fool around. Grown-up people are sensible. Or—if they are not sensible—they are crazy, which is different from being a fool.”
“Oh.” I looked at the fire, then at the moon. The aliens had musical instruments. They had ceremonies. They danced. I knew they were capable of competition. Think of Hakht and Nahusai. But did they play as we did? Ritual aggression and competition were absolutely central to the Western cultures. The East Asians had opera and kabuki and all the martial arts. Everyone had soccer. Did these people need to play as much as we did? There was so much tension in human society, so much frustrated aggression. Even now, when the old society—the society of greed and deprivation—was gone.
Wait a minute. Not every human society was full of tension. I remembered the California aborigines. They were mellow, consciously and deliberately. Mellowness was central to their religion. It was a sign of enlightenment. The ideal aborigine was mellow and in touch. He or she kept a low profile, close to Mother Earth.
I thought about Derek. He could be mellow, but it was an act. Under the surface he was like a bull walrus. He knew what he wanted, and he would fight to get it. Had he known what he was like as a kid? Was that why he’d left his people? He would have been a failure, frustrated and angry, among people who could sit for hours watching a condor in the sky and be happy.
“That’s where it’s at,” one of them told me, a witch wearing a loincloth and a lot of tattoos. “Mother Earth and Father Sky, the things that live—the plants and animals. All the old mysteries that the prophets spoke about. Black Elk and the Buddha. Jesus and Mother Charity. They all tell us the same thing. No matter how much you struggle and strive, you’ll never get out of this world alive. So why struggle? And why strive? Do what you have to. Take what you need. Be thankful and be mellow.”
Okay, I told that old memory. I closed my eyes and saw her: lined face and long flat breasts. There was—there had been—a crescent moon on her forehead. Between her breasts was a pendant, a double axe carved out of shell. A wise old lady. Had Derek known her? Not likely. Her tribe was different. They were mountain people, the Bernadinos.
I ate another piece of meat, then went to sleep, waking in the middle of the night. The moon was gone. The sky was full of stars. I sat up. The fire was a heap of coals that still glowed a little. I looked around. Nia was next to me, snoring. Farther off I saw another body. That must be the oracle.
On the far side of the fire was a third person standing upright, tall and pale. “Derek?”
“I just got back.” His voice was low. “You were right. The ground is hot. I could feel it through the boots.”
“Any trouble?”
“No. Except, a funny thing. When I was coming back, the moon was setting. Just as it went out of sight, I saw a flare. I think the moon is erupting.”
I thought for a moment. “That’s possible, isn’t it? The planetologists said there was evidence that it had been active recently.”
“The eruption has to be huge,” Derek said. “Really huge, if I can see it.”