Free Shipstar by Larry Niven, Gregory Benford Page A

reflecting from the walled basin. It was eerie and moving and Cliff let himself be drawn into it. Grief made its same choices for the Sil as among humans—gliding, graceful themes, deepening as the growing amplitude plowed into more somber courses. Then, suddenly, that ended in a stunning trill the voices held for a long while, as their instruments boomed forth.
    The silence. No applause. Just grief.
    They all—Howard, Irma, Terry, and Aybe—sat respectfully until told to move, as they had learned was considered polite here. Howard was nursing a bad cut and a bum knee, Terry and Aybe had burns and bound-up wounds, but altogether the humans had minimal damage. They kept their heads down, perhaps from politeness, but Cliff lowered his eyes because he did not want to look into the eyes of the Sil more than he had to. The Sil filed out, their slanted faces seeming even longer now, no one speaking. Their instruments caught Cliff’s eye. The laws of physics set design constraints for woodwinds and stringed players—long tubes, resonant cavities, holes for tuning—but the music that bloomed from these oddly shaped chambers and strings was both eerie and yet familiar. It had an artful use of counterpoint, moments of harmonic convergence, repeating details of melodic lines. There were side commentaries in other keys, too. Was music somehow universal?
    As they emerged from the stone bowl, he looked back at the now-empty crescents where the seats each had a slight rounded depression for sitting. Once in Sicily he had seen an ancient open theater that looked much like this. But here the stones were pale conglomerate, not limestone, and far older. Yet the same design emerged.
    Still obeying the code of silence, they walked into the sprawling community. This part of the Sil cityscape had escaped the fire bombing. It was a vast relief to be away from the charred precincts where he and the others had worked for … he could not even recall the count. At least a week, though now it seemed a boundary between a past where he had felt in control of his world, and now … this.…
    He pulled his mind away from the memories. Focus. His crew training made this possible, but not easy.
    The Sil chose habitats, he noticed, the way a seasoned soldier instinctively chooses cover. Here a wall gave an angled exposure to the star. Another wall stood oblique to that, to allow the jet’s glow to have its say with redder luminosities, so each shadow had different colors at play. One wall gave protection from the prevailing wind, with an apartment perched to take advantage of the cooler prospect, big open windows facing away from the field of bright, fine sands that bounded the Sil town. There was a lake nearby, not deep but enough to fetch a tranquil blue from the hovering sky. Sils lounged in shadows for delicious rest, on a spongy plane, their bodies prone on the soft jade green. Sil crowds gathered there, their trilling speech low and reflective. A moist breeze blew through the crowd, and streamers of fog danced among the zigzag trees.
    All eyes followed the humans. They had all agreed to affect a casual disregard of this. “Think of it as like being a movie star,” Irma had said.
    And it was. The Sil at least hid their sliding gaze by turning heads a bit away, but Cliff felt the pressure of their regard.
    “They wonder what to make of us,” Howard whispered.
    Aybe said, “We’re enough like them—two arms, two legs, one head. Maybe that’s an optimal smart alien design? Makes us sorta simpatico. Better than the Bird Folk, anyway.”
    “And the Sil know to keep a distance, give us some room to take them in, too,” Terry added. “It’s kinda fun. Here are real, smart aliens who aren’t chasing us.”
    “Or killing us,” Irma said sardonically. “Beth’s team wasn’t so lucky.”
    This memory sobered them as they passed by a truly ancient-looking stone edifice, erect on its bare site, the huge blocks sweating with every gush of