Founding Generations

"If I have to keep reading this I'm going to go crazy. And then what will everyone think of the Lost Race, huh?"

The monk sighed at Almat. "You pick it all up quickly, but there's much more you must learn. Study until noon at least."

Almat stared at the book in his white-furred hands. Yes, yes, somebody had to learn the ancient arts of genetics and cybernetics, but it didn't have to be him right this second. He tossed the glowing screen onto a cushion and looked up to fix his eyes on Brother Fractal's. "It's a beautiful day. I'm going out."

Brother Rocket and Sister Vaccine were weeding the vegetable garden, a crossbow with enchanted bolts slung over each monk's shoulder. The other humans and a few otterfolk were testing the new fertilizer mix. Almat waved to them, ignoring Brother Fractal's protests, and headed for the woods. According to early mind-tests, the Lost Race liked forests best. He jogged through warm sunlight to test his body's limits. Not for science but for himself. Maybe he'd just keep running until he found another place to live, one where nothing special was expected of him. There was plenty to do in the world besides study!

A stream curled around the sacred hill, like Almat's bushy tail along his back. One of the Lost Race's oddities was its centauroid form with four clawed feet and a pair of hands, all in handsome black-and-white striped fur. Almat jogged to the water and sprawled onto his long back, pawing at warm sunbeams.

"Oh!" someone said. Almat reluctantly opened his eyes and found Lehi and Romoni with fishing poles and buckets. Romoni nervously twitched her tail and stomped the ground with forelegs, startled. Lehi was bigger and bolder, saying, "Is the new theory that we're sun-powered?"

"No," said Almat, curling his upper body to prop himself up on hands. "I spent all morning studying calculus. You?"

Lehi grinned and held up a fist. "You let those salt-miners push you around. They don't know anything you can't learn from the archive."

The monks had been soldiers and their families, given a salt mine as a valuable but dangerous pension after a war. They'd found that the hill had much more than edible rock in it, and now held the place by virtue of their land grant, a claim of special holy status, and some equipment the archive had taught them how to build.

Romoni said, "Don't insult them though. Do we want to be known as mean and petty?"

Now Almat twisted himself up onto his feet and trotted closer, eyes narrowed. "I don't care about the reputation of the Lost Race. Do you see Kiki fretting about what people think of the otterfolk every time she gobbles a fish?"

Romoni's ears and tail drooped. "No, but with so few of us to judge..." The three of them, their lost sister, and the four toddlers were all the monks had revived so far.

"Lessons are fine. Being nice is fine. But I refuse to spend my life looking over my shoulders for what others think about 'my kind'." Almat looked to Lehi. "Right?"

Lehi reared up and stomped the dirt. "Yeah. And now I'm going to earn us a reputation as good fishermen."

The three relaxed along the stream, talking about the gardens and the new machine shop and scheming to sneak out to the baron's capital city some week. After a few hours of lazy fun, Romoni and Lehi headed out to appease the monks with some fish while Almat headed straight back to the archive to study. It wasn't like he actually hated the books.

On the way there, though, he met a traveler -- someone from outside! Even the peasants around home had clean clothes now, and radios, but this man looked like he'd been on dirt roads for weeks. "You're lucky not to have fur," Almat said.

The man gaped, which made Almat grin. "You're one of the creatures of the Arcane Mountain?"

Almat looked back at the sacred hill. "Slightly exaggerated, but yes. Did you also hear that we can breathe fire?"

The wanderer smoothed down his dusty jacket and adjusted his backpack. "I had heard many things. Thought I should see for myself, in _Her_ name." He showed off a twine necklace with a tiny wooden wheel.

Almat's tail twitched and he pawed at the ground. The official protocol was to be polite to followers of Saint Dolores the Unbroken. There wasn't much choice in the matter, unless he wanted to get the whole monastery in trouble with the Baron and all the other lords. "You're welcome to see the place, and we have beds and food. You can follow me there if you want."

"Bless you, child. I see that there is a soul in you, worthy of salvation." He followed when Almat started trotting home. "Our Lady has granted us all a great wonder by uncovering the knowledge your people found."

"My people?"

"The monks. The salt-miners. Do they teach everyone about those weapons?"

"We all know how to use them." His tail stood proudly up. Pumpkins at thirty paces feared him!

"Yet there must be greater weapons than these, what with all the artifacts in your archive."

Almat slowed. "There are," he said, "but we can't build them. Some of the devices we use are irreplaceable until we recreate ancient arts of mining and production and spellcraft." And there were some that 'his people' didn't discuss.

"Shouldn't the archives be opened to all, though, so that the greatest minds can scour them for ideas?"

Almat said, "No. Definitely not. People would steal and break things. Do you have any idea how lucky I am that the ancients built their DNA archive using triply-redundant crystal matrix technology rather than doubly-redundant feather memory?"

"Er..."

"Exactly. Instead, we've got plenty of copies of the originals that you can look through."

Almat dropped the traveler off at their inn, then traveled into the depths.

Brother Fractal was sitting in the salt chapel. Underground, the ex-soldiers had carved part of the hill's huge salt deposit into a glittering shrine in grey and pink crystal. A carpet took Almat over the crystal floor, past columns twined with rising vines and wings. Before Almat could speak, the human looked up from the screen in his hands, and gave him an icy glare. "Come with me."

Almat drooped, padding along the carpet and into the depths. The shrine had actually started before they'd found the archive; they just hadn't known which god to dedicate it to. So the tunnel led farther, past rough walls of crystal, to the place that always made people hush.

There were no carvings for Arkanae the Keeper of Knowledge here, no bright colors. Only a wall thick as any castle's, set with a heavy door of the same incredible blue metal. The salt had been cleared away from it and the door swung open to show the archive. Though he came here most every day, Almat always hesitated when he crossed the threshold into the ancient world inside. Here were the first artificial lights the monks had ever seen; here were the computers and a case holding the holy engine, a hand crank with pictographic instructions to "turn this to begin". Nearly everything was in duplicate or triplicate, carefully spread across the fortified rooms. Even the chairs and tables the monks had put in, and the space freed by things removed, had not taken away the place's sense of urgency. When the screens had first come alight and told the curious miners how to lay out sun-drinking panels and magical chargers outdoors, when they had described the language of an ancient age and promised "the power to revive the world", the only imaginable choices had been to become acolytes of knowledge or its terrified destroyers. Almat bowed his head as he usually did when remembering that humans had chosen light over darkness.

"Well," he said. "I'm not sorry, but I admit the break lasted longer than I planned."

Brother Fractal didn't stop walking. Past the holy engine and the main screen was a door blocked by a table. "Move this, please."

Almat dragged it aside. "What's going on?"

The robed man set down his crossbow and opened the door. Almat had rarely seen the room beyond: the biology lab. Cold breeze prickled his fur as he peeked past Fractal at the glass tanks, the dim-glowing racks of tubes. Fractal finally spoke, not looking back at him. "There's an archive within the archive."

"I know. All the seeds and stuff." Trees, fruits and vegetables from a lost age and several continents. The miracle plant called the potato. Cocoa. The indespensible tomato. Forgotten animals with warm pelts or friendly hearts. And of course, embryos of the Lost Race.

"Not just those. There's a message you haven't seen." Fractal turned to him, his face grim. "You're irresponsible. You should watch this when you have the time between naps and jogging." He pointed to a screen Almat hadn't noticed, then slipped past him to stand outside the room. A robe brushed against Almat's fuzzy flank.

"All right, I'll watch it." With his tail high he added, "But I'm plenty responsible! All of us are. Even the kids." The toddlers weren't really his problem or his descendants, thank Arkanae, but they'd grown up with computers too while most of the world was scratching the dirt with iron plows.

Fractal left him and shut the door, leaving it unlocked. Almat tapped at the screen, wondering what the man was so solemn about. They'd all read many of the ancient files and spent time in the print shop producing paper copies of the books they called the "hundred wonders". When the list appeared glowing silently on the wall, Almat said, "Journal of Arkanae?"

The lost age was a time of living gods, the kind that walked the earth. Even so, Almat was startled when he tapped the screen and caught sight of the archive's holy builder. In hindsight it shouldn't have surprised him that the face looking out from the screen was like his own.

The deep sapphire eyes were dimmed with pain and blood trickled from matted fur near the white stripe down his head. "Forgive us. We didn't know what we were doing. Someday, use this place. Someone's bound to survive. If you're seeing this you've already got access, but in case the other files are corrupt or something, here's my dead-simple guide for people who don't understand the language I'm speaking..."

Almat's tail was high in alarm and he felt muscles tensed, ready to spray. The ghost was a young man of the Lost Race, his hands smearing blood on a sheet of paper as he wrote out simple pictures and words. He could be Almat's brother, or quite possibly his father. The god of knowledge and healing was one of his own people!

And Almat watched as the god taught his language to the future, trailed slowly off, and died.

He stormed out of the laboratory, pausing with a terrified expression when his tail brushed a glass tank and he feared he'd knock it over. When he found Fractal again he stammered, "What's the meaning of this?"

The monk was in the salt chapel again with Sister Vaccine, whose prayers to Arkanae had never seemed addressed to someone with stripes. Fractal spoke quietly. "You watched the last entry, unless you changed the settings. We decided it was time you knew."

"Knew what? That Arkanae was..." He shook his head and flattened his ears, trying to follow the mental discipline called _science_. "That he wasn't one of the gods?"

Vaccine brushed a hand reassuringly down Almat's lower back. "You know the ancients made other peoples."

"Yes, yes. But how could Arkanae be a god if he was one of us? Or did the ancients not really make our kind?"

The monks glanced up the stairs, making sure they were alone. Brother Fractal said, "He wasn't among the ancients' pantheon. But he did bring the Lost Race into this new world along with the ancients' blessings, so isn't that enough reason to hail him as a god?"

Almat's tail lashed. It wasn't like he was superstitious! He'd been raised as a disciple of science and a follower of Arkanae... which were supposedly one and the same... and he hadn't prayed in earnest since he was twelve. Other than the litanies of guidance and focus which were really just mental tools.

"Then, why me? Why didn't you show this to the others too?"

The monks studied his face, seeing the confusion there but not the turmoil way back in his gut. _I'm not superstitious_, he thought, but it was still a shock to see his god. "He was dying. Why?"

Brother Rocket said, "There's one answer to both. Arkanae was much like you. We decided that you might be best for persuading the others to take their work more seriously, because he did something similar. At great cost."

Guilt, again? He knew his race was supposed to establish a good reputation, to revive lost arts, to improve the world -- but the demands just didn't quit! And here the monks were throwing in a dead god to stare at him too. Back to the calculus book!

Almat growled and stomped back into the archive room before he could yell or spray. He slammed the door behind him and turned on a random selection from the god's journal.

#

"I made it through a month," Arkanae said. He was walking back and forth past the camera with loads of boxes on his lower back. He grumbled something Almat couldn't understand despite growing up with ancient recordings and texts. "And then they _promoted_ me!" Only the striped tail was in view, and it didn't look pleased.

Almat saw a home. A single room beyond the camera where Arkanae had a long blanket and shelves full of unknown devices. The god was banging around offscreen. "One month after graduating from the police academy, and the Bureau of Security decided it was time to take me off the street and 'reward' me with a desk job." Something got slapped in front of the camera lens for a moment: a glowing computer screen with a photo of Arkanae.

Almat paused the recording. The screen showed what the ancients called a newspaper, headlined: "Skunktaur Cop Saves Girl."

"I have to keep going. We're not going to be living toys. There's so much to do, with the riots getting worse every month. I was that kid's hero for a little while. And now the Bureau plans to tuck me away where I won't matter. The closest I could get to an honest explanation was that 'it's best for everyone'. They want all us artificials out of sight of the protesters." The striped face poked the camera, nose-first, so that Almat's pulse quickened. Arkanae was looking at him! "I have packing to finish. Doctor Lamoni, I know you're watching these and I don't care. 'Psychological stability' means I get upset when people treat me wrong."

The corner of Almat's mouth twitched. That much, he could relate to. Constantly being watched and judged on behalf of the Lost Race. The recording ended, leaving the room dim again. Almat sighed and looked at the six wondrous growth tanks, four of which still glowed with benign enchantment. Right now there were creatures called 'raccoons' gestating in there, some kind of clever pet that was wiped out when the world ended. The monks were talking about producing Almat's kind full-time to increase the tiny population, but there were so many other species to recreate and these tanks were the world's last.

He looked at the racks of frozen embryos and reached out a clawtip to a particular spot, to the many other potential brothers and sisters that waited. Plenty of others could one day wear that species label, 'durian', that the ancients had chosen. The cold shelves reassured him that the burden of defining the Lost Race wasn't all on his back.

He trotted out to the salt mine, to where he could hear the actual mining operation in the distance. It had never ceased just because a new world was being born. And of course there was certain machinery being kept down there despite the corrosion, for security reasons.

He saw that wandering friar of Saint Dolores, heading in that direction. Almat froze and watched him. There was purpose in his movement, not just idle curiosity. Almat's fur prickled as he tried to imagine why. He began to move, too, and stalk this man. He slipped off his sandals and padded casually down the tunnel once the traveler was out of sight. Almat knew which direction hid the cache of crude bombs and other forms of insurance. The friar's footsteps led in that direction. Coincidence? Almat stayed just close enough to listen for him. The man was avoiding the clang of mining picks and the scent of salt that meant people were around. Almat's fists balled at his sides. Who would dare abuse their hospitality like this? He wriggled through the narrow tunnels and felt stone brush against his sides.

They were close to the locked door labeled "Supply Closet 4". Almat waited for a moment. He hoped to hear the man find the dead end and turn back, having made an innocent mistake. Instead, his ears caught the sound of someone fooling with the lock. Almat carefully backed up to approach the poor thief in reverse. The man had just enough time to freeze and say "I was just --" before Almat raised his tail and sprayed.

The monks had been unpleasantly surprised to learn about this unusual power of the Lost Race. Everybody sprayed a family member at least once in their lives. Almat and his brothers and sisters were faintly embarrassed by their ability, but it could be useful. The wandering thief, of course, staggered and gagged. Almat shouted for help and kicked the man with a stocky hindleg, knocking him into the door. "Stay right there or I'll do it again!"

"Ack! What...?"

Almat called out again from lungs like bellows, and heard his voice echo through the mine. Brother Rocket was first on the scene. Almat said, "I caught him here!"

"I can't see!" said the man.

"That'll wear off," said Brother Rocket, holding his nose. "If you'd like to spend time behind a locked door, we'll be happy to oblige."

"You can't do this to me. I'm a holy man!"

"You don't smell like one." Two burly miners with picks showed up, and Almat could finally relax.

#

"You did the right thing," said Sister Vaccine. Sister Hovercar and Brother Radio (who was thinking of changing his name; that dream was becoming real already) were on hand to agree.

Almat nodded. Just then, Lehi and Romoni peeked into the archive where they were meeting. The big Lehi said, "I heard you caught a spy?"

"He did," said Brother Rocket. The room of ancient machines and new chairs was getting crowded. Almat's siblings settled onto big cushions in the corner. "I traded some lye soap, tomato juice and water for information. The man's willing to admit he works for the Baron."

Silence fell. Almat saw people looking at their crossbows. He pawed at the floor and said, "What does that mean for us?"

Vaccine said, "He wants what we have. Getting access to the Hundred Wonders books and a steady stream of inventions isn't good enough for him anymore. The man had been grumbling about going to war with his neighbors and wanting more weapons, so he's probably guessed that we're holding something back."

Almat made sure someone had closed the door. "But the -- the bombs and gas won't win him a war. We couldn't make him a big supply if we wanted to. Even our, uh, special weapon has limited ammunition."

"Yes, and we can't replace his harquebuses with automatic gun turrets that shoot exploding fairies, but he doesn't know that. We're the Golden Goose." Everyone had read _that_ ancient story, and the printers made a point of putting it in the Hundred Wonders.

Brother Rocket sighed, then looked to Almat and his siblings. "You three can go. We have some plans to make."

Almat said, "What're we going to do about the spy?"

"Thank you for catching him, but this matter is going to be classified from now on. Please return to your studies."

"Hmmph," said Lehi, pushing himself up to his feet and stretching. He made for the door and Romoni followed.

Almat watched them go, then turned and found Rocket staring at him. Everyone else hesitated to speak until he left. Almat grumbled and trudged out.

The vault door closed behind them. Romoni stamped the tunnel floor. "It's not fair. There's important stuff going on."

Lehi brushed her tail with one paw. "Don't worry about it. Those outsiders have been poking around here since the beginning. Did you ever figure out that physics game, Almat? I can't get the 'lunar lander' thing to work."

Almat nodded. "Yeah, I can teach you. Actually, I can show you something better once they're out of that meeting."

#

That evening, he took them back to the vault, then into the cold room. "They let me see this. It's a journal from our ancestor." He decided it would be better to start at the beginning rather than showing them the bleeding, dying Arkanae, so he cued the first entry.

The screen lit up. There was a stage and a crowd of men with cameras. The bottom of the view had splashes of color and the words, "PEOPLE'S NEWS NETWORK: Latest Creation Of Imperium Biotech Unveiled?" A man somewhere was saying, "Stock rose on anticipation of a follow-up to the bioroid soldier line, or pleasure models like the Lutris footmen on display tonight."

Romoni said, "What's this? What year is this from?"

"Twenty years before the end," said Almat. He was looking at the otter-ladies who flanked the stage, wearing flowing blue togas and those horrible energy pistols the archives showed in action, during the old world's collapse. The guns and their wearers seemed to be there for show. "They were made for 'pleasure'?"

Lehi snorted. "Maybe if they had more paws..."

The chattering cameramen startled. The curtain parted to reveal a boy with four legs and a striped tail that was twitching dangerously. He looked back and forth at the crowd, then up at the human monk -- er, scientist, who stood beside him. The scientist's right arm was sleek metal and plastic, obviously giving the boy little comfort as it petted him. The human spoke and his voice boomed. "This is Arkanae."

Almat's brother and sister said, "Him?"

"I was surprised too," said Almat. "He went on to build this place, this archive."

A question cut through the crowd. "What's it for?"

The scientist said, "He's from our blue-sky project. We're calling them 'durians'. Why don't you say a few words, Arkanae?"

The boy's eyes were wide and his forelegs stamped the stage. In his position Almat would probably have sprayed and fled by now. Instead, young Arkanae coughed and spoke. "Um. Hi. It's nice to meet you all." He was wearing an elaborate vest with a red cape that draped down his lower back. The boy pulled out some paper from his pocket and read, "Long live the People and the glorious Nation! The future belongs to the People!"

Applause and music covered Arkanae's retreat to behind the curtain. The human smiled and took questions from the audience. The one that kept coming up was, "What's this thing supposed to do for us?" The scientist only hemmed and hawed about experimental science, until the entry ended.

Lehi stood with fists clenched at his sides. "So they made us as toys, like the otterfolk?"

Romoni looked awed. "Arkanae was one of us!"

Almat said, "Must've been scary to live in a lab and then meet the outside world."

Lehi nodded. "But he'd have learned a whole lot out there. He would've wanted to go, to quit being a prisoner."

#

Traders came. A pair of wagons with half a dozen men, to make the inn come alive for a few days with light and stories. Almat bounded over to them as he always did, to buy candy and hear about the world. There were no women or children this trip to tug his tail and force him to remember the constant rule to be on his best behavior. Instead there were men who spoke of the grand kingdom to which they belonged.

"He rules from a silver throne," said a trader in yellow. The clothes' color itself was strange to Almat, who usually saw the humble browns of the monks and the surrounding peasants. "The capital city has over thirty thousand people in it, with a market every single day, and you can always hear the ringing of bells. The King stands on a balcony on holy days and blesses everyone."

Almat had been thinking about dyes, and how hard it might be to make them from old formulas, but his thoughts drifted off to that distant land. There was the sacred hill, and beyond it the Baron's fields and villages. He imagined his view pulling still higher above the land, to take in the whole kingdom and its endless sights. He listened to the words the traveler spun, and imagined himself on one of the ancient metal moons called "satellites" that slept and waited for new masters, slept and watched the vast world.

Almat said, "How far away is this city?"

"More than a hundred miles! And the far border is even farther away."

Almat whistled. He found that Romoni was listening too. In a way the tale saddened him; he knew from his books that men used to fly such a distance in an hour. Even so, a hundred miles was an adventure _now_.

The trader said, "I'm sure you could find work there, all of you. Any interest in riding with us when we leave?"

The friar-turned-spy had tempted him with that, too. Almat tried to look calm but couldn't hide his agitated tail. "Not this time. Maybe in a few years."

#

The three durians sprawled in the lounge. Lehi said, "We should do it. Get out of here together and have adventures."

Romoni lay on her backs, with her middle paws batting at the air like a cat's. "There's more to learn here, though. And we're a lot safer here. What would the monks think if we ran off?"

"What would they think," Almat echoed. "Back then, Arkanae worried about that. He thought we might end up as 'living toys' like the otterfolk. Did you see the entry about being a guard? A 'policeman'?"

Lehi nodded. "And he should've told his masters to, to deal with their own problems instead." He rolled over to sit sphinxlike, ears back. "We're not much better off. We're rich enough to have computers and toilets and chocolate and antibiotics and flea powder, but we're _kept_, like pets. Whenever Brother Rocket talks about building a good repuation for the Lost Race, I wave my tail at him."

Almat said, "He seemed to like what he was doing, though. Want to see more of the journal?"

"Yeah."

#

They picked one of the early entries, from when their ancestor was a pet being raised by scientists. The screen showed them People's News Network footage of little Arkanae sitting at a customized desk with a bunch of human kids in elegantly tailored red uniforms. A cheerful voice was saying, "Imperium Biotech made a stir today with the introduction of its first prototype 'durian' bioroid to the Laman School For Social Justice Studies. He was welcomed by some of the most talented students in the Nation and proved himself already caught up on the Junior Economic Management curriculum. Maybe future Four Year Plans will be designed by someone with stripes! Let's all wish Imperium Biotech luck with this promising new prototype."

The footage of a productive classroom cut off. Instead, the modern durians were looking at Arkanae's face too close to the camera. The fur around his cheeks was matted with tears. "They lied to me! Everybody told me the school was for smart kids, but it turned out to be the kids of the same blockhead Party members who do all the stand-around-and-drink events and drag me along. Everybody in class was super nice while the cameraman was there, and then they turned on me during recess and lunch and whenever the teacher looked away.

"And then... Then Doc listened to me talk about it and told me _I_ was wrong! 'You have to learn proper socialization skills' and stuff like that. 'What will people think of the durians? Until your brothers and sisters grow up you're the public face of the whole species.' How would he like it if I made _him_ answer for every time any human sprays -- or whatever -- does something bad to anyone?"

The sniffling, striped face backed away from the camera and looked down at clenched fists. "Okay. Fine. I'm not gonna hit anybody again if I can help it. Or do the other thing. But whenever I turn on the news it's all about how we have to kill off the traitors and rebels and terrorists. Does Doc ever wonder what I think about _his_ people?"

#

Lehi fumed. "Yeah! What good are humans if they killed each other off last time? Why should we respect them, if us durians know how to build things just as well?"

Romoni said, "They built _us_."

Her brother said, "As experiments! As slaves!"

The girl's ears and tail drooped. "I don't know. It seemed like Arkanae was being sent to school with the expectation of doing big things someday."

Almat nodded. "And they went on to let him start doing those things." He realized they'd all slipped into speaking in the ancients' language, and switched back to modern talk. "He worried too about what people would think of the race. It looks like he did end up caring."

"Well, I don't!" said Lehi. "I'm not somebody's pet, not Brother Rocket's or anybody's. Say, what if we went along with this party of traders? Go and see the world, I mean."

Romoni hugged her own tail. "Outside? Abandoning everybody?"

"Just for a while. It'd be fun, and it'd prove we're not prisoners here."

Almat said, "I'd rather ask first. Maybe they _will_ let us go for a while, and they'll give us money and stuff. And if they say no, then we know."

"Well... We'd still be asking permission."

"First."

Lehi shuffled feet. "I guess. We should ask together."

#

That night, Almat wandered the sacred hill. The moon looked the same as it had since his ancestor's time, with the same tiny alchemical fire visible as a pinpoint on the dark side. A base, at least a ruined one, was waiting there for people to come back.

He let his eyes adjust. The grass tickled his underside and his tail. There was only the beginning of a civilization here: the salt mine, the villages huddled around it, and the fields where humans and otterfolk spent their days like any other peasant farmers, just with hints of better tools, better knowledge. The Lost Race was just another artifact being dredged up from the past, no more important to revive than old species of plant and animal. Which wasn't fair! In Arkanae's time there hadn't been a chance to _do_ anything, to make a mark and stand out...

Almat spotted firelight in the distance. It wouldn't have been too unusual, but it was snuffed out as quickly as an electric bulb. Almat tilted his head and trotted in that direction. Not the villages... It was the main road the traders came through. Or what passed for a road these days, anyway. Travelers at this hour, though? He supposed he should get to the inn and let the keepers know they'd have guests. Almat turned and started back in that direction. Still, he looked back over his shoulders and frowned. His tail wiggled at the thought of that suddenly snuffed-out light. Something glinted, too, when the moonlight caught it. Light on metal, from the same direction.

A few minutes later, the innkeeper grumbled and answered the door. "Oh, it's you, Stripes. What?"

"Somebody's coming down the road. Customers, I hope. But can I use your radio?"

The man muttered complaints as he tried to wake up, but he let Almat in. Almat went to the counter and found the box studded with fine, lacquered wood controls over hidden circuitry. "Hello?" he said into the receiver. He hesitated, and kept shifting his weight on the foot pedals to power it. "Something's odd here. Brother Rocket, are you still up? Or Sister Vaccine?"

No answer. Almat frowned. "Anybody?"

The radio crackled. "Mayday!"

Almat's fur bristled. "Come in! What's going on?" No answer. He found the innkeeper beside him, looking spooked.

"The traders," said the man. "Only men, with less to sell than usual, as though they were using those wagons to carry something else."

Almat completed the thought. "They were sent as scouts ahead of _another_ group."

The innkeeper shouted upstairs. "Selene -- trouble!"

Almat sent one last message on the inn's radio to warn anyone who'd listen. Maybe some of the farmers had left one with a battery on. A minute later they had abandoned the inn, carrying crossbows and knives. The base was a mile off, though, and there were probably men following. "Have _they_ got radios?" said Almat.

"The traders bought a spare, and if it's the Baron's forces they'll have several by now. Just maybe not tuned to the same what-you-call-it."

"Frequency." Almat cursed. The Baron was at peace with the monks! Didn't that man get enough wealth and fame and technology from the golden goose? "What's the point in him going after us?" The innkeeper and his wife had no answer besides the obvious one: the same sort of stupidity that had once destroyed the world.

The three of them reached the sacred hill in time to see some of the outlying buildings catch fire. Almat yelped and said, "I helped build that greenhouse!" With the spreading fire, he could see dark shapes moving around -- the traders who'd come to throw the monks into confusion, to soften them up. Almat's hands trembled on the crossbow he carried. He'd shattered melons with this thing. Now, though, there were people threatening his home. He pictured a bolt going into a man's head instead, and shuddered. "Have you ever killed anybody?" he said.

The innkeeper stepped in front of him and headed for the burning buildings. "Stripes, it's a matter of how much you care. Would you rather live with the guilt of doing it, or of not doing it? I've had both at different times. If you're not willing, find a place to hide. And Selene, there's no question that you --"

"That I'm fighting alongside you," said the wife. Neither of them had on more than pants, thin nightshirts and boots; Almat shivered on their behalf. The man only nodded grimly; no place around here was truly safe.

The man crept ahead. "Stripes, face straight toward them or away. Shoot while I reload." There was a figure in dark clothes, carrying a torch. The innkeeper raised his weapon without hesitation and caught him in the shoulder. His wife pointed out a second man and she and Almat took aim. Almat's hands shook until he glared at them. He had to do this. He aimed again, pulled the trigger... The distant man staggered and clutched his throat, his stomach, and collapsed into the shadows. Almat would never know which shot was his. He felt as though he'd been hit, himself. _This is what we are now -- killers._

The innkeeper was pulling the reloading chain with one foot. "Come on. We need to get to the base, if they're not answering on radio."

Almat shuddered. The monks might not even know who else was coming! He reloaded and hurried along after the others. With luck, whoever was in there wouldn't be expecting someone from outside, yet. The mine's entrance stood open and all was quiet within, at first. Then Almat's ears perked and he said, "Someone's shouting." Only dim electric bulbs lit the rooms and tunnels ahead.

They made their way down the carpets, over floors of salt and stone. Almat heard approaching sounds of battle.

"Where?" said the innkeeper. "I don't know the layout like you."

Almat's tail bristled. "Toward the vault. This way!" Now he was in the lead, hurrying around corners until he could hear voices just around the corner. He looked back and felt all his fur on end. The innkeeper brushed past him, risked a glance, then signed "three" with his fingers. Two, one...

Around the corner. Almat burst into view of a standoff. Men with knives and crossbows stood at the entrance to the vault of Arkanae. Just past it, the monks held their ground. Brother Rocket was screaming obscenities. The others were saying, "This is our future! Idiots! How dare you?"

Almat didn't think much about it this time. He raised his crossbow and fired into the one of the attackers' backs. Then he whipped around, raised his tail, and sprayed down the rest of them so that they all gagged and reeled. The innkeeper and his wife fired anyway, and then the monks joined in. The invaders didn't last long. Almat stood there smelling musk and listening to people dying. _I did this._

He shuddered. "Everyone! More men are coming! The traders were just an advance group. We saw lights on the horizon, and, and --"

The innkeeper put a hand on Almat's upper shoulder. "We think it's the Baron's men. I give them about an hour before they get here, since they probably think this place is under control. We took care of some arsonists outside, but some buildings are on fire."

The monks were gagging and coughing too. Everyone was starting to move at once, to make for the locked room with the sacred hill's special weapons. Brother Rocket said, "Almat? Thank Arkanae you're here!"

Almat's ears drooped. "Why would you say that, after everything you showed me?"

"Because he was a hero. And that's enough."

"Where are...?" Almat stopped, because he saw Romoni and Lehi peeking out from the vault. He felt his muscles relax.

"I told them to get inside. We'll protect you with our lives. Get in here with them."

Almat took a step back. Men and women were brushing past his big torso to tend the wounded and prepare for the Baron's assault. All the humans, even the otterfolk here, had gathered to defend Arkanae's legacy. They weren't looking to see what he did; they were just working together for the cause of building a better world.

He shook his head. "No. I'm going to fight beside you."

#

Some time later, the sacred hill began to quiet down again. Almat used all of his skill to tend wounds, repair defenses, and revisit books he'd dismissed as dull. And then he returned to the heart of things, to the vault, to remind himself of the one who'd made this place possible.

In the entry the young durian watched, Arkanae was a grown man, whose eyes seemed haunted. "It's all going to end, isn't it?" he said into the recorder. "War is coming, worse than any we've seen before. Us durians are a blip in history. All my worries about our reputation count for nothing after all. But I won't let us just vanish! I've gathered money to make something that will last. A record that will tell the world I lived, that I did something with my time here, and that will save something of the world that made me."

Almat stared into the screen, at an ancient laboratory where his first ancestor was looking back out. Arkanae put one of his middle paws up against the screen, and Almat mirrored him. "Someday, maybe someone will see this and know what I was. But you're in your own world now. Use what you've got, and be who you want. Good luck."

Almat kept his paw against the screen for a while after the video faded. He was staring into a dark screen with his own faint reflection pawing back at him. Arkanae might not have been a god, but he'd been wise. If Almat was fated to earn a reputation for his people, he decided, he'd do well to follow the one example he'd been given. He left the vault's inner room quietly, with many plans spinning in his head and the burden of responsibility resting lightly on his back.