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eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: Following the lead of his Paradise and faintly echoing Dante's Divine Comedy, Resnick returns with a new saga of miscellaneous tribulations pitting humans against aliens. The only enduring element is Karimon, a newly colonized world of intelligent reptiles demeaningly referred to as "snakes" by their human overlords. Resnick traces the history of Karimon's involvement with and later resistance to human oppression, as the Earth-like world is first subsumed by the intergalactic Republic and then, later, returned to its native hosts. Through a captivating series of politically slanted episodes, interesting characters--notably including Jalanopi, a wily, Solomon-like king of the "snakes," and Violet Gardener, whose zeal in fashioning Karimon according to her own ideals is matched only by the virulency of a wasting blood disease--come and go. Although Resnick's novel registers less as science fiction than as a thinly disguised history of colonial Africa complete with African-sounding places and names, it remains an absorbing speculative contemplation of political intrigue between opposing species.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: 1993
Fictionwise Release Date: September 2002

This eBook is part of the following series:

• Mike Resnick's A Chronicle of a Distant World Series

29 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [819 KB], eReader (PDB) [244 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [248 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [221 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [207 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [257 KB], hiebook (KML) [611 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [274 KB], iSilo (PDB) [203 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [261 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [339 KB]
Words: 74909
Reading time: 214-299 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
Microsoft Reader ISBN: 1-59062-448-3

Jalanopi's tree was almost five hundred years old.

It reached to a height of almost half a mile, and was a full 100 feet in circumference at its base. Once it had been surrounded by many trees like itself, tall and stately, but now it was the last, and it could be seen for more than five miles in every direction. Its trunk and limbs were a deep purple, smooth and glistening in the sunlight. Its circular leaves had been falling for almost a month, and its silver flowers were a distant memory.

The tree had been there for three centuries before the coming of Jalanopi's people. Huge animals had rubbed against it and eaten of its bark; small animals had burrowed into it and lived in its base. Later, prisoners had been tied to its bole and hung from its branches. Dwellings had been made of its bark, medicines from its leaves, and poisons from its blossoms. Its twigs and branches supplied the firewood that lit the village at nights, its fruit had been eaten by untold generations of villagers and animals, and its sweet sap was prized by the local children.

Over the years all of its branches, to a height of more than 75 feet, had been removed for various purposes, but it was home to more than one hundred avians, nesting far above the ground. Untold generations of Tailswingers had been born, lived, and died in its branches without ever descending to the ground. Dozens of green and gold lizards sunned themselves on the branches. A huge serpent had made its home in the tree when Jalanopi's people first arrived; no one had seen it for almost half a century, but since no Tailswinger or lizard corpse was ever found on the ground, the villagers were convinced that it was still up there, a thousand feet or more above their heads.

Every section of Jalanopi's tree was a page in the living history of his people. The first human explorer, Robert Elroy, had carved three long notches on its bole to mark his path almost two centuries ago, only to fall prey to a pack of Devildogs two miles further on. The first human missionary, Father Patrick Dugan, had made his first convert beside the tree, then died of fever a month later. Jalanopi's grandfather had been killed beneath this tree, chopped to pieces by his enemies. Years later Jalanopi's father had retaken the area, pinning his rival chief to the trunk of the tree with a spear and leaving the body there until the raptors and insects had picked the bones clean.

Jalanopi himself had been born less than a quarter mile from the tree. As a child he had broken a leg trying to scale it, which left him with a slight but permanent limp. He had used it for target practice when he first learned to hurl a spear, and had happily lost his virginity one spring evening in the shadows cast by the tree's enormous purple branches. It was beneath this tree that he himself had been proclaimed king when his father died, and beside this tree that his father had been buried. As king, Jalanopi had held court and passed sentences and made treaties and declared wars beneath his tree.

And so it remained a very special tree, viewed with an almost religious awe by the members of the Tulabete, who were Jalanopi's people. It was said that as long as the tree lived, they would survive and prosper, and that if the tree should ever die, then so too would the Tulabete.

Jalanopi himself was an imposing sight, and commanded even more awe than his tree. He stood fully seven feet tall, and wore a tunic of spun spider-silk and a cloak made from the skin of a Wildfang that he had taken while armed with only his spear, an act that had cost him one of the long, pliable fingers from his three-digited hand. He had just completed the annual shedding of his old skin, and the tiny new scales on his green-tinted body glistened in the sunlight, emphasizing the rippling of his enormous muscles. Atop his bullet-shaped head was the copper crown that signified he was the rightful king of the Tulabete, a crown he had defended twice in war and three times in personal combat, and for which he had not been challenged in more than a decade now.

He viewed his world through striking orange catseyes, and all that he could see, to the horizon and beyond, was his domain. It stretched from the ocean to the east all the way to the broad river hundreds of miles to the west, from the northern desert to the southern mountains. Jalanopi was certain that there was more to his world, but he had sent out scouts and none had ever found any land worth conquering. There were deserts out there, and mountains, and salt water, and jungles where the rain never ceased and the sun never shone, but he had no interest in them. There was no tillable land that he did not rule, no game animals that did not graze on the Tulabetes' vast savannahs, no fresh water that did not flow through his domain.

There were rivals for his land, of course, once-powerful clans that now scratched out a living on its outskirts, and it was rumored that there was a huge, powerful tribe beyond the mountains to the south, but he had beaten back challenges before, and he knew that as long as his tree stood the Tulabete were invulnerable in battle.

He leaned back against his tree now, lazily surveying his domain, as a flock of avians took off from the upper terraces. It was a warm day, dry and clear, as almost all the days were. In a few minutes he would have to sit on his wooden throne and hold court, but for the moment he was content just to stare out across the lush green fields, dotted here and there with the domiciles of his people, each dwelling constructed in the mystic shape of a coiled serpent.

Finally a man clad totally in black approached him.

"Good morning, Jalanopi," he said in the language of the Tulabete.

Jalanopi stared at him but said nothing.

"I trust you slept well," continued the man.

"I always sleep well," said Jalanopi, his long, lean tongue flicking out to capture an insect that flew too near his face. He reeled in his tongue and brought his teeth down on the insect's carapace with a loud, crunching noise.

The man looked away, trying to hide his distaste for the Tulabete's dietary habits. "I would not sleep well if I were you," he said. "Not with that party of Canphorites camped just a couple of miles away."

Jalanopi continued staring at the man. "You are a very unusual servant of your god," he said, dwelling sibilantly on the "s" sound in each word. "He preaches love, and you preach suspicion."

"My god did not create the Canphorites," replied Reverend Andrew McFarley. "They are a vicious and duplicitous race."

"They came from the stars," answered Jalanopi. "You came from the stars."

"And there all similarity ends."

"Do not fear for us, Man Andrew," said Jalanopi easily. "The Canphorites are in Jalanopi's kingdom; they will obey Jalanopi's laws."

"I doubt it."

Jalanopi flicked away an insect that had landed on his face, leading McFarley to wonder once more why certain insects were considered delicacies by the Tulabete while others were merely viewed as pests. "Then they will suffer the consequences."

McFarley's expression reflected his doubts on the matter.

"But in the meantime, they have brought me many gifts," continued Jalanopi.

"They seek to buy your friendship with trinkets," said McFarley.

"As you yourself gave me a hat?" suggested Jalanopi.

"I wish only to live among your people and educate them in the ways of Jesus Christ."

Jalanopi stared at him with expressionless catseyes, his features more alien and inscrutable than usual.

"You are wasting your time, Man Andrew," he said at last.

"It is mine to waste."

"How long have you been here?"

"On Karimon? About four months."

"And have any of my people accepted this Christ of yours?"

"Not yet," said McFarley. "But they will."

"You seem both friendly and harmless, Man Andrew, and you are welcome to remain--but they will not accept your Christ," said Jalanopi. "Why should a race of warriors worship a being of a different race who was unable to defend himself and let himself be killed by his enemies?"

"It is not that simple," said McFarley.

"It is that simple," said Jalanopi with a cold, reptilian smile. He pointed to the cross that hung around McFarley's neck. "You even wear the instrument of his destruction. How can a man who worships death preach to beings who worship life?"

"I do not worship death," answered McFarley, "but rather what he died for."

"You have learned our language, and you have brought us medicines, and you have helped us care for our old and our infirm, and for that we are grateful," said Jalanopi. "But you had best keep those books you brought with you; there is no wisdom in them for the Tulabete."

"There is wisdom in the bible for all sentient beings," said McFarley, stepping aside as a pair of Tallgrazers, the local meat animals, wandered by, almost brushing against him. He noticed recently-healed scars at their joints and wondered how they could survive when the Tulabete inserted their narrow tubes and drained them of their marrow--a substance that, along with the insects, formed the Tulabetes' staple diet--on a monthly basis.

Jalanopi looked at him, his face still an unreadable green mask. "Do you truly believe that?"

"Absolutely."

"In a few minutes I must hold court and sit in judgment," said Jalanopi. "One of the cases that will be brought will be from an outlying area. Two females both claim to be the mother of the same infant. His father has been away fighting a tribe called the Rakko, and cannot say which of them is the true mother. The father is very wealthy, and the day will come that all he possesses is passed on to his progeny. It can reasonably be expected that the son will favor his mother more than the other woman, which is doubtless why they both claim to have given birth to him." He paused. "What is there in your book to deal with that?"

McFarley smiled. "As I said, there is wisdom enough in the bible for all races." He wiped some sweat from his forehead, flicked away a flying insect and barely got his hand out of the way of Jalanopi's amazingly swift tongue, and continued. "Once, a very long time ago, there was a king named Solomon, who was praised far and wide for his wisdom. And into his court came two women, each of whom claimed to be the mother of the same baby."

"Truly?" asked Jalanopi, his eyes narrowing, his earholes pulsating, both signs of sudden interest.

"Truly. He questioned both of the women, but they each kept to their story."

"As these will do today."

"Finally, he announced that he could not tell which of them was the true mother, and that the only fair decision was to cut the baby in half and give one half to each woman."

Jalanopi exhaled a long, high-pitched hiss, which McFarley had come to recognize as a display of contempt.

"This king was not wise," said Jalanopi at last.

"Hear me out," said McFarley. "When he announced his decision, one of the women came forward and said that she could not allow him to kill an innocent child, and that she would forsake her claim to motherhood. And Solomon immediately knew that she was the mother, for no mother would allow her baby to be slaughtered."

"Your Solomon was a fool, Man Andrew."

"Why?"

"Do you know what would happen if I made that same judgment?"

"Suppose you tell me," said McFarley.

"Neither female would say a word, and then, because a king does not retract a threat made before his tribe, the infant would have to be cut in half."

"Surely the real mother would protest."

"The penalty for disputing my judgment is death," said Jalanopi. "Do you really think they will protest?"

"Try it," urged McFarley. "You'll see that you're wrong."

"And if I am not wrong?" said Jalanopi. "Will you kill the infant?"

"No."

Jalanopi hissed again. "You see, Man Andrew? You wish to offer your god's advice, but if it proves wrong you do not wish to bear the consequences."

"How will you solve the problem?" asked McFarley.

"It would be foolish to reach a decision before hearing both females, would it not?"

"Yes," said McFarley. "Yes, it would."

"You are both fair and honest, Man Andrew. Very few beings of any race are willing to admit when they are wrong."

"I may be wrong," said McFarley. "I have never claimed to be infallible. But my religion is not wrong."

"It is well that you should feel that way," continued Jalanopi. "It is a matter of belief. I should no more be able to talk you out of worshiping your gods than you can talk me out of worshiping mine."

"God," McFarley corrected him. "One god."

"He must feel very overburdened at times."

"But He persists."

"An admirable trait. And now it is time for me to put on my ceremonial headdress and hold court."

"Do you mind if I watch?" asked McFarley.

"You wish to compare my judgment to that of King Solomon?"

"I'm just curious to see how you handle the problem."

"Then come," said Jalanopi, walking off across the short brown grass to his intricately winding dwelling, which seemed to curve back on itself time and again. Twice he sidestepped small rodents that were in his path; a third time, for no reason McFarley could fathom, he went out of his way to step on and mortally wound an identical rodent, which he ignored as is lay there writhing in its death throes.

Upon reaching his dwelling, Jalanopi crawled into it with a slithering motion, retrieved a huge, feathered headdress, wrapped a cloak made from the skin of a Nightkiller around his shoulders, and returned to his tree. The members of the village followed him to the carved wooden throne, which was also in the shape of a coiled reptile, where he sat down and waited for them to fall silent. Finally he nodded to one of his counselors, who stepped forward.

"What have we today?" asked Jalanopi.

"First, there is a petition from the human, Fuentes, to continue hunting on your land for three more months." The counselor nodded to an assistant, who placed three bags at Jalanopi's feet. "He offers this salt as a gift."

"He may hunt for ten days," said Jalanopi. "No longer."

"It is a large amount of salt, My King," noted the counselor.

"True," agreed Jalanopi. "And it is very valuable to us." He paused and an allowed himself the luxury of a cold, totally reptilian smile. "But it is obviously not very valuable to him, for he has given us salt the last three times, and he has not left our world for almost a year, which means he came with a great supply of it in his ship. Salt must be very easy for him to obtain on his home world, and we must take that into account when bargaining with him."