It was on the fourth day and the smell of sea was much stronger. The map Fortis saw the first afternoon, an electronic display sheet George produced when they had set up camp, showed how there were a great many long sea inlets, snaking inland, making the polar island look like a splatter. They had crossed several shallow inlets of varying widths, but none deep enough to more than wet the boots Fortis wore. George had explained only the polar island was like that, and the map images indicated it was so. However, the islands farther north were themselves rather scattered, randomly shaped, but fairly dense in the southern hemisphere. There was a wide band of continental land masses on the equator, with narrow seas cutting between them. The northern hemisphere was rather more thinly scattered islands, mostly smaller.
“What you notice as a sea smell will soon fade to olfactory accommodation, since it is nearly ubiquitous outside the equatorial lands,” George explained.
Fortis settled himself for a long and tedious journey, still tossing around his intuition how George seemed to read his questions. It never dawned on him George, or his entire world, would possess anything like it themselves. Indeed, for all their primitive culture and technology, their mental abilities were far beyond the norm. Not in the sense of pure intellectual acumen; Fortis had seen lots of that in his studies. Some cultures encouraged such a high level of intellect one would think they all had the most advanced chip implants, but it went well beyond mere algorithm processing. It was more like a highly advanced process of branching off into new connections, and doing it altogether faster than most of the human race. Such people would have nearly died of boredom in this quiet long journey, because their worlds were filled with constant, rapidly shifting inputs.
For all his rather ordinary intellect, with his secret gift of tuition, Fortis was terribly uncomfortable in those cultures. Yet, rather than the milder case of boredom he expected with George’s ebullient and informative chatter, Fortis was stunned as George began to lay out the more shocking map of Misty, the philosophical orientation unlike anything Fortis had seen in his long years of study. After three days of entertaining and encyclopedic discussion of standard anthropological data, George halted their progress for lunch.
Over the meal of smoked, dried meat, and a little of the harshly flavored fish Fortis could not yet bring himself to consume, along with various dried fruits and roasted nuts and grain, George remarked rather casually they would not be setting up the tent that day.
“In just an hour from here we’ll be at the shore near the boat. We use something like a raft to move the animals out to the ship. They could easily wade out, but then we’d have to lift them aboard. They aren’t particularly fond of getting wet, anyway. By nightfall, we’ll be within reach of an island with no predators, and a fairly sharp bank so we can tie up directly to it. The currents just north of here are a bit fast and strong, so they create some unusual topography, though nothing dramatic. Tomorrow you’ll get a taste of some stronger winds. Still, only in the high deserts, and the shores just near them, are they strong enough to threaten a boat much.”
No sooner had they remounted and set out through the scattered sparse grass, when George said something in a totally different tone of voice. It was almost somber. “Some of the data coming back on our birds the past few years make us nervous here on Misty.”
Fortis turned to look directly at George, who had been staring straight ahead, almost stony faced. Then his gaze sank to the reins in his hands, sighing deeply. Fortis was paying full attention, now.
George continued, “You are aware several religious temples were destroyed on three different worlds?”
“They weren’t really very significant as buildings go,” Fortis offered.
“But they were all belonging to a particular sect, or a family of sects. They held to some odd practices, such as chanting, or simply sitting quietly for hours. While the buildings were never large or fancy, they always included the latest sound dampening technology, so you could go inside and not know there was a whole modern world out there roaring away. They practiced a form of meditation.”
Fortis remembered, but hadn’t given it much thought. “I seem to recall they rejected all implants, insisting whatever they really needed to know could not be reduced to data streams.” As soon as he said it, Fortis realized the possible connection to his own use of intuition.
George half smiled. “They roamed the Land Without Words.” Fortis was slightly amused at how George could make it obvious the words were a proper noun. “The old generic term for such religions is ‘mysticism.’ Directly experiencing ultimate truth, they would claim, using non-intellectual faculties.”
Fortis recognized the quoted standard academic definition. He filled in the rest. “It was regarded as a superstition, something which hindered normal human development. It also tended to make them socially troublesome. Too many of them were elitist, refusing to adapt or negotiate logically with the various social structures in which they lived. It hearkened back to ancient prejudices which have no place in such a far-flung humanity. When mankind went out to the stars, diplomacy was so essential it became hard-wired, something written into the very structure of the standard Galactic language. It’s one of the first things infants learn when they begin to vocalize.”
George halted his mount. “Whatever they did wrong, this oppressive move threatens to destroy the last hope for humanity.” He dismounted.
Fortis realized there was a flat, oblong platform in front of them pulled up some distance from the water’s edge. Glancing about, he could see they were on a spit of land just a dozen meters across, and wide expanses of water separated them from any other lands, now almost entirely behind them.
George strode to the platform and lifted the end closest to the water. Fortis noted it looked as if the surface was woven grass, with a curved frame providing the oval shape, apparently of that same light, hard wood used for almost everything. Before Fortis could dismount and offer to help, George had waded out a ways and let the platform down in the water. Letting it go, Fortis could see it was still resting partially on the bottom, with the front edge under water.
George called out in that odd gibberish used to direct the beasts’ behavior, and the draft animal pulled forward alone, walking slowly toward the platform. George halted it, then stepped quickly behind the wagon and turned the crank which slid the wheel carriage forward until the harness began to pull upward slightly. In one smooth motion he released the harness and allowed the wagon to tip back, raising the arms of the harness skyward. He then directed the beast onto the platform. Fortis was no longer surprised to see something so flimsy looking bear the weight without flexing. Then George bent down and turned some handle Fortis could not see. There was a an audible hissing sound as some sort of bladder inflated under the entire platform, spreading out and raising the whole thing out of the water just a bit, leveling the platform to float. From one side, George pulled up a long pole and pushed the raft away toward the boat some meters off shore. Fortis hadn’t really noticed it before.
It took only an hour to ferry the three beasts and the men together with the wagon. Near the waterline, the boat was almost as flat as the raft, which was now strung behind the boat. Fortis had noticed during their approach and embarkation the underside had smooth, almost shiny pontoons on both sides. Up close, he glimpsed a ribbed structure under the surface, running straight the length of the pontoons. The beasts stood on the lowest deck in the center. Apparently they never laid down; Fortis never saw them when they weren’t standing or walking. The wagon was rolled to the stern and locked in a frame made to receive it. Fortis had seen rigging for pleasure craft on many worlds, some with wind sails of all sorts of designs. He noticed this boat had a complicated framework of very stiff sails, which still appeared to be gossamer fabric. They could be turned vertically by a simple control on the foredeck. They had been folded together when he boarded, but George quickly got them spread out and turned to catch the breeze somehow. Almost immediately the vessel began to move.
Fortis sat on a woven seat mounted near the steering station. George sat down facing him once he was satisfied everything was working properly. He kept one hand on the controls, and glanced back and forth among the bright sails.
Still looking up, “You know, Fortis, the emperors had special tutors for their children and some of their staff. Among those tutors, it was a long tradition to have one or more of those mystics whose temples were destroyed recently. Legend has it they helped the rulers and close counselors anticipate things a whole planet of scientists could not have guessed. They took the mystics seriously. The imperial policies only failed when someone murdered the staff mystics in fit of political jealousy. While the last emperor of the our most recent Imperium hadn’t really been paying much attention to the mystics, they still held strong ceremonial importance. Once they were dead, imperial favor for them declined. That trend carried over into the break up, and the council in that sector has been pressing them hard ever since then.”
Fortis had not heard all the details, but recognized the story. “I take it something is brewing which you believe requires mystics to discern. Without them, the population of the galaxy is somehow threatened.”
George turned to Fortis with a grin. “Your intuition is quite good.”
