Most of the living species on that planet were plants. There were a very few flying and creeping species with no intelligence to speak of, and of these, only the ravenous “topflyers” were tough enough to survive Sek’s awful burning light for long. These infested the uppermost levels of the rain forest that covered the two great continents of the world, eating one another and anything else foolish enough to venture up or out into the terrible fire of day.
“It looks like everything else living here except those topflyers stays undercover if it wants to keep on living,” Nita said, looking up from her own manual. “Even the one intelligent species…”
She turned a couple of pages, and Sker’ret’s display shifted to match hers, showing them a closely annotated image of one of the giant bugs. “They call themselves the Yaldiv,” Nita said, “though they’re such a hive species, I’m not sure that the concept of them ‘calling themselves’ anything is right. According to this, they’ve got kind of a common undermind or subconscious, so they may just think of themselves as one body with a lot of moving parts.” She shook her head. “Not a ‘them’: an ‘it.’”
Kit, glancing over at Nita’s manual, pointed at large blue-glowing patches that appeared here and there on the pages. “What the heck are those?”
Nita shook her head again. “Some of the species background information is blocked,” she said. She laid her finger on one patch, which came alive with the words in the Speech, “Data in abeyance.” Another lined-out passage, when she touched it, said, “Data withheld.”
“Withheld by whom?” Sker’ret said. “Or what?”
Nita looked over at Ronan. Such redacted notations, the Defender said through him, mean that some other Power is interfering with the exchange of information.
“And you can just guess which one,” Kit said softly. “Darryl did say—”
Kit saw Nita swallow. “That we shouldn’t hang around any longer than we have to,” she said. “So let’s get down there and find out what the Instrumentality is, and what we have to do to get it and make it work for us.”
Filif rustled all his branches and looked rather challengingly at Ronan. “I don’t suppose you could be a little more forthcoming now about any details you’ve received from your sources.”
I don’t have anything new to share with you, the One’s Champion said through Ronan. The other Powers seem to think we’ve been given enough information to find the Instrumentality without any further input.
“I hate that,” Kit said, though he wasn’t annoyed enough to put too much force on the statement. “You know? I really hate it when They trust us so completely.”
Ronan looked nonplussed. You’re all we have to work with, said the One’s Champion. And you’ve always produced the result before. Suddenly Ronan grinned; it was a sour look. “See, this is your reward for not letting the Lone One defeat you a long time ago.”
“You wouldn’t think it was so funny if you knew what Its idea of defeat usually looks like,” Kit said. “And I still wish the Powers thought we were a little more clueless. We might get things done faster.”
But not as effectively, the Champion said.
“Yeah, well,” Nita said, sounding uncomfortable. She turned her attention back to her manual, and when her gaze was turned away, Kit sneaked a concerned look at her. Nita had been as unnerved as Filif when they’d first gotten up here, and to Kit’s eye, she still looked pale. “Probably we should start with the cities,” Nita said. “There are two city-hives on the bigger of the two continents, kind of like giant anthills. They’re a few hundred miles apart. They’ve been fighting each other, on and off, for—” Nita looked at the numbers on the timeline indicator that shone on the page, and squinted in disbelief. “Millions of years?”
“They must really be enjoying it,” Sker’ret said dryly, “to keep the war going so long.”
“I don’t know if enjoy would be the right word,” Nita said, turning another page. “Each side sees the other as a terrible threat.” She glanced at Sker’ret. “Just think about it. If each of the Yaldiv cities always saw itself as the only being in the world—and then all of a sudden another one turned up, one that thought of itself as the only being in the world—”
“Then both sides have a great reason to panic,” Ronan said. “And an excuse to wipe the other side out.”
“It looks like somebody might already have had a run at that,” Kit said, turning a page in his own manual. “Have you looked at the background radiation numbers for this place?”
Nita looked surprised. “I thought maybe those were so high because we’re so close to the star.”
Kit shook his head, looking increasingly grim. “Oh, yeah, the atmosphere’s real ionized, but that’s not going to account for the plutonium residue all over the place.” He pointed at the manual page. “Look here. And over there—”
Filif shook all over, a horrified shudder. “Someone here was using atomics?” he said. “The Kindler must have driven them completely insane.”
“It’s a popular kind of crazy,” Kit said. “Unfortunately.”
“You’ll be telling me next that they burn their hydrocarbons!”
“Uh, no,” Kit said. “But it looks like there was a more developed civilization here once. A real long time ago. There’s nothing left now. It’s been completely degraded.”
“Were the creatures here part of that civilization?” Sker’ret said to Nita. “Or are they a successor species?”
Nita shook her head. “No way to tell. Almost all the rest of the history section is blocked out. ‘Data withheld.’”
“And here’s something else that’s kind of nasty,” Ronan said, glancing back at the group. He had been looking off into the distance, the way Irish wizards did when consulting their memory-based version of the manual. “All these creatures’ve got a significant, aware fraction of the Lone Power as part of their souls.”
Nita turned a horrified look on him. “Are you saying that the whole Yaldiv species is overshadowed?”
It’s rather worse than that, the One’s Champion said. And rather more permanent. They’re all avatars.
Everyone stared at Ronan. “All of them are mortal versions of the Lone One?” Sker’ret said. “How’s that possible? Such a multiple embodiment would require immense power.”
Which It has, said the Champion. But, yes, even for one of us, this kind of power outlay would be significant. My guess is that this culture has either been owned for so long that this kind of avataric presence has simply seeped into the species’ nature over millennia. Or else the manifestation is something new, a test bed for something the Lone Power is planning.