Brad walked through the new village, empty buildings waiting for the birth of the new generation of Gammans growing beneath the ground in the farm fields.
Mnnx walked beside him, looking slightly ludicrous in one of the stiff cloth coveralls that the Gammans were weaving for themselves. It hung past his knees, and Mnnx also wore a Gamman version of a ski mask, with his two bulbous eyes bulging out on either side of his head. His hooflike feet were still bare, although 3-D printers aboard the starship were already turning out boots for the Gammans.
The sky above was gray, leaden. A light snow was drifting down from the clouds.
“Winter is coming,” said Mnnx unnecessarily.
Brad nodded. He wore a light parka, no hat.
“Yes,” he agreed. “But you’ll be ready for it. You’ll live through the winter and welcome the new Folk when they rise from the ground.”
“If the Sky Masters permit us.”
Brad turned and started back toward the original village. Mnnx kept pace beside him.
“Are the Sky Masters real?” Brad asked.
“You saw the city,” Mnnx replied. “You saw how it was destroyed.”
“Yes, I know, but if they wanted to wipe you out, why didn’t they destroy your village too, and the other villages? Why did they let you live?”
“They send the monsters from Beta to kill us.”
“But not the new generation growing in the ground. Not the Rememberers in each village. Why let them live?”
“No one knows. Perhaps they will return one day and reveal their purposes to us.”
“Perhaps not.”
Mnnx fell silent as they walked along the empty street. At last he said, “Brrd, I think that perhaps you have been sent to save us from the Sky Masters.”
“I want you to live,” Brad said. “I want you to get through the winter and begin to build new lives for yourselves.”
Casting an uneasy eye at the gray sky above them, Mnnx said, “That will surely bring the Sky Masters to punish us for disobeying their wishes.”
“No,” Brad contradicted. “You will live, and grow, and prosper. And we will help you. My people are producing food for you so you can live through the winter, and—”
“But one day you will leave us.”
Reluctantly, Brad admitted, “Yes.”
“Before the winter fully sets in.”
“Yes.”
“After you go, the Sky Masters will return and kill us all. They will leave none of us alive, because we disobeyed them.”
Brad stared at this alien creature whom he had come to regard as his friend. He’s terrified, Brad thought. He does what we tell him to, but he’s terrified that once we leave they’ll all be killed by the so-called Sky Masters.
“More of my kind will arrive here after we have gone,” Brad said. Then he stretched the truth by adding, “They will protect you against the Sky Masters.”
Mnnx said nothing.
* * *
Lnng obviously wasn’t as frightened as Mnnx. “I believe Brrd,” he said that evening as the Gammans gathered inside their homes for their evening meal.
Brad sat among a half-dozen of the aliens, between Mnnx and Lnng, staring into the warming blaze in the fireplace that the humans had shown the Gammans how to build. The flickering flames were hypnotic, Brad felt. There’s an ancient bond, he thought, between humans and their fires. A link that allowed us to survive the Ice Age, back on Earth. It’s bred into our genes: fire, the energy source that ensured our survival in the time of cold. The energy source that started our climb to the stars.
Lnng’s thoughts were much more practical. Pointing at the fireplace, he said, “The food you have given us will allow us to live through the winter. We can welcome the new Folk when they rise from the ground, teach them, help them to become like us.”
Mnnx’s head drooped despondently. “If the Sky Masters allow it.”
“The Sky Masters have gone away,” Lnng said. “Why should they return here?”
“To punish us.”
“No,” said Lnng. “I think they have sent Brrd and his friends to help us. I think the Sky Masters want us to live, not die.”
Brad marveled at his optimism. Where Mnnx sees death, Lnng sees life, he thought.
“Tell us the truth, Brrd,” Lnng urged. “The Sky Masters have sent you, haven’t they?”
With a shake of his head, Brad replied, “No, we came here to help you. We knew nothing of the Sky Masters until you told us of them.”
Lnng stared at Brad for a silent moment, then jumped to his feet and shouted, “Sky Masters! Wherever you are! We live and we will keep on living, thanks to Brrd and his people’s help. If you have sent them, thanks be to you. If you have not, then we can live without you.”
Mnnx and the other Gammans sat in stunned silence. Even Brad was taken aback by Lnng’s declaration. He’s committing blasphemy, Brad thought. Then he realized that blasphemy is often the first step up from ignorance.
Instead of outrage, Mnnx merely said, “Sit down, Lnng, and eat your dinner. The Sky Masters will answer you in their own time.”
Brad let out a breath. A very gentle response to blasphemy, he told himself. But then, the Gammans are a very gentle people.
He sat in silence and tried not to show the shiver of revulsion he felt as the Gammans shoveled their food into the mouths in their abdomens. At last he slowly climbed to his feet, surprised that he really didn’t want to go.
I think of them as my friends, he realized. Despite our differences, I really care about them.
“I must return to my own village now,” he said to Mnnx.
The Gamman got up beside him. “You will come back tomorrow?”
“Yes, of course.”
Brad got as far as the door before Lnng called, “If you meet any Sky Masters out in the night, tell them we would like to see them.”
Gamman faces are not built to express emotions, but Brad thought he felt resentment and something close to anger radiating from Mnnx.