Chapter 52: The Future

The Wau knelt on one knee, on a formation of silica. Under the diffracted light of the golden moons, he could clearly make out a large cluster riddled with holes—or rather, several clusters that had, over time, grown into each other, creating cavities.

A presence approaches ... by hopping. The Wau is so surprised he tumbles backward. For all his giant size, he is smaller than this Xeno: a large frog with a slender body, two huge stalked eyes, long webbed legs, and feathered skin. The Xeno rotates its head around its neck like an owl, and the Wau recognizes it instantly.

You are an Owl from Booz, aren’t you? The ones who can see the future? he thinks using his psi powers, transmitting images rather than words.

The Owl enters his mind and shows him various images: its species colonizing the planet, flying in ships, celebrating with humans ... then the distinctions between these images dissolve into one: a people living in swamps and feeding on legged fish.

The Wau understands that the Owls don’t merely see into parallel worlds—they use them to communicate. Truth and fact, to them, are not acknowledgements of the real world, but the exclusion of parallel possibilities.

He resumes his posture, and the Owl watches him. He extends his consciousness and tries to perceive what is thinking down here. In the caverns. Two members of the Brotherhood, harpoon in hand, hunting. Six Fleet soldiers, also hunting. Over a hundred Owls. They can see the future, so they avoid the patrols—but there are dead ends. The Wau arrived just in time.

He concentrates and subtly influences the team leaders’ decisions, who, unknowingly, head back toward the exits. Then they run into each other and open fire. The Owls, frightened, flee the caverns with a flurry of wings in disorienting chaos. Two soldiers are down, stunned but mostly unharmed; the pirates are well-armed and in their element. The Wau mentally encourages the Owls to flee further west, away from Babylon. He clouds the minds of all the men so they scatter and lose one another. Believing himself under the hallucinatory influence of an Owl, a Brother stumbles to a Raven, floundering in the mud and screaming in terror.