“The humans on Cilmar and the other islands are completely helpless to reprisals. So, for that matter, are all the urban chims here in town. So we have to begin carefully and concentrate on intelligence gathering before trying to really harm the enemy. If the Gubru come to realize they’re facing an organized resistance, there’s no telling what they’ll do.”
Fiben watched from the shadowed end of the room as one of the new cell leaders, a professor from the college, raised his hand. “But how could they threaten the hostages under the Galactic Codes of War? I think I remember reading somewhere that—”
One of the older chimmies interrupted. “Dr. Wald, we can’t count on the Galactic Codes. We just don’t know the subtleties involved and don’t have time to learn them!”
“We could look them up,” the elderly chen suggested weakly. “The city Library is open for business.”
“Yeah,” Gailet sniffed. “With a Gubru Librarian in charge now, I can just imagine asking one of them for a scan-dump on resistance warfare!”
“Well, supposedly …”
The discussion had been going on this way for quite a while. Fiben coughed behind his fist. Everyone looked up. It was the first time he had spoken since the long meeting began.
“The point is moot,” he said quietly. “Even if we knew the hostages would be safe. Gailet’s right for yet another reason.”
She darted a look at him, half suspicious and perhaps a little resentful of his support. She’s bright, he thought. But we’re going to have trouble, she and I.
He continued. “We have to make our first strikes seem less than they are because right now the invader is relaxed, unsuspecting, and completely contemptuous of us. It’s a condition we’ll find him in only once. We mustn’t squander that until the resistance is coordinated and ready.
“That means we keep things low key until we hear from the general.”
He smiled at Gailet and leaned against the wall. She frowned back, but said nothing. They had had their differences over placing the Port Helenia resistance under the command of a young alien. That had not changed.
She needed him though, for now. Fiben’s stunt at the Ape’s Grape had brought dozens of new recruits out of the woodwork, galvanizing a part of the community that had had its fill of heavy-handed Gubru propaganda.
“All right, then,” Gailet said. “Let’s start with something simple. Something you can tell your general about.” Their eyes met briefly, Fiben just smiled, and held her gaze while other voices rose.
“What if we were to …”
“How about if we blow up …”
“Maybe a general strike …”
Fiben listened to the surge of ideas—ways to sting and fool an ancient, experienced, arrogant, and vastly powerful Galactic race—and felt he knew exactly what Gailet was thinking, what she had to be thinking after that unnerving, revealing trip to Port Helenia College.
Are we really sapient beings, without our patrons? Do we dare try even our brightest schemes against powers we can barely perceive?
Fiben nodded in agreement with Gailet Jones. Yes, indeed. We had better keep it simple.
37
Galactics
It was all getting pretty expensive, but that was not the only thing bothering the Suzerain of Cost and Caution. All the new antispace fortifications, the perpetual assaults by coercion gas on any and every suspected or detected Earthling site—these were things insisted upon by the Suzerain of Beam and Talon, and this early in the occupation it was hard to refuse the military commander anything it thought needed.
But accounting was not the only job of the Suzerain of Cost and Caution. Its other task was protection of the Gubru race from the repercussions of error.
So many starfaring species had come into existence since the great chain of Uplift was begun by the Progenitors, three billion years ago. Many had flowered, risen to great heights, only to be brought crashing down by some stupid, avoidable mistake.
That was yet another reason for the way authority was divided among the Gubru. There was the aggressive spirit of the Talon Soldier, to dare and seek out opportunities for the Roost. There was the exacting taskmaster of Propriety, to make certain they adhered to the True Path. In addition, though, there must be Caution, the squawk of warning, forever warning, that daring can step too far, and propriety too rigid can also make roosts fall.
The Suzerain of Cost and Caution paced its office. Beyond the surrounding gardens lay the small city the humans called Port Helenia. Throughout the building, Gubru and Kwackoo bureaucrats went over details, calculated odds, made plans.
Soon there would be another Command Conclave with its peers, the other Suzerains. The Suzerain of Cost and Caution knew there would be more demands made.
Talon would ask why most of the battle fleet was being called away. And it would have to be shown that the Gubru Nest Masters had need of the great battleships elsewhere, now that Garth appeared secure.
Propriety would complain again that this world’s Planetary Library was woefully inadequate and appeared to have been damaged, somehow, by the fleeing Earthling government. Or perhaps it had been sabotaged by the Tymbrimi trickster Uthacalthing? In any event, there would be urgent insistence that a larger branch be brought in, at horrible expense.
The Suzerain of Cost and Caution fluffed its down. This time it felt filled with confidence. It had let the other two have their way for a time, but things were peaceful now, well in hand.
The other two were younger, less experienced—brilliant, but far too rash. It was time to begin showing them how things were going to be, how they must be, if a sane, sound policy was to emerge. This colloquy, the Suzerain of Cost and Caution assured itself, it would prevail!
The Suzerain brushed its beak and looked out onto the peaceful afternoon. These were lovely gardens, with pleasant open lawns and trees imported from dozens of worlds. The former owner of these structures was no longer here, but his taste could be sensed in the surroundings.
How sad it was that there were so few Gubru who understood or even cared about the esthetics of other races! There was a word for this appreciation of otherness. In Anglic it was called empathy. Some sophonts carried the business too far, of course. The Thennanin and the Tymbrimi, each in their own way, had made absurdities of themselves, ruining all clarity of their uniqueness. Still, there were factions among the Roost Masters who believed that a small dose of this other-appreciation might prove very useful in the years ahead.
More than useful, caution seemed now to demand it.
The Suzerain had made its plans. The clever schemes of its peers would unite under its leadership. The outlines of a new policy were already becoming clear.
Life was such a serious business, the Suzerain of Cost and Caution contemplated. And yet, every now and then, it actually seemed quite pleasant!
For a time it crooned to itself contentedly.
38
Fiben
“Everything’s all set.”
The tall chim wiped his hands on his coveralls. Max wore long sleeves to keep the grease out of his fur, but the measure hadn’t been entirely successful. He put aside his tool kit, squatted next to Fiben, and used a stick to draw a rude sketch in the sand.
“Here’s where th’ town-gas hydrogen pipes enter the embassy grounds, an’ here’s where they pass under the chancery. My partner an’ I have put in a splice over beyond those cottonwoods. When Dr. Jones gives the word, we’ll pour in fifty kilos of D-17. That ought to do the trick.”
Fiben nodded as the other chim brushed away the drawing. “Sounds excellent, Max.”
It was a good plan, simple and, more important, extremely difficult to trace, whether it succeeded or not. At least that’s what they all were counting on.
He wondered what Athaclena would think of this scheme. Like most chims, Fiben’s idea of Tymbrimi personality had come mostly out of vid dramas and speeches by the ambassador. From those impressions it seemed Earth’s chief allies certainl
y loved irony.
I hope so, he mused. She’ll need a sense of humor to appreciate what we’re about to do to the Tymbrimi Embassy.
He felt weird sitting out here in the open, not more than a hundred meters from the Embassy grounds, where the rolling hills of Sea Bluff Park overlooked the Sea of Cilmar. In oldtime war movies, men always seemed to set off on missions like this at night, with blackened faces.
But that was in the dark ages, before the days of high tech and infrared spotters. Activity after dark would only draw attention from the invaders. So the saboteurs moved about in daylight, disguising their activities amid the normal routine of park maintenance.
Max pulled a sandwich out of his capacious coveralls and took out large bites while they waited. The big chim was no less impressive here, seated cross-legged, than when they had met, that night at the Ape’s Grape. With his broad shoulders and pronounced canines, one might have thought he’d be a revert, a genetic reject. In truth, the Uplift Board cared less about such cosmetic features than the fellow’s calm, totally unflappable nature. He had already been granted one fatherhood, and another of his group wives was expecting his second child.
Max had been an employee of Gailet’s family ever since she was a little girl and had taken care of her after her return from schooling on Earth. His devotion to her was obvious.
Too few yellow-card chims like Max were members of the urban underground. Gailet’s insistence on recruiting almost solely blue and green cards had made Fiben uncomfortable. And yet he had seen her point. With it known that some chims were collaborating with the enemy, it would be best to start creating their network of cells out of those who had the most to lose under the Gubru.
That still didn’t make the discrimination smell good to Fiben.
“Feelin’ any better?”
“Hmm?” Fiben looked up.
“Your muscles.” Max gestured. “Feelin’ less sore now?”
Fiben had to grin. Max had apologized all too often, first for doing nothing when the Probationers began harassing him back at the Ape’s Grape, and later shooting him with the stunner on Gailet’s orders. Of course both actions were understandable in retrospect. Neither he nor Gailet had known what to make of Fiben, at first, and had decided to err on the side of caution.
“Yeah, lots better. Just a twinge now and then. Thanks.”
“Mmm, good. Glad.” Max nodded, satisfied. Privately, Fiben noted that he had never heard Gailet express any regret over what he’d gone through.
Fiben tightened another bolt on the sand-lawn groomer he had been repairing. It was a real breakdown, of course, just in case a Gubru patrol stopped by. But luck had been with them so far. Anyway, most of the invaders seemed to be down at the south side of Aspinal Bay, supervising another of their mysterious construction projects.
He slipped a monocular out of his belt and focused on the Embassy. A low plastic fence topped with glittering wire surrounded the compound, punctuated at intervals by tiny whirling watch buoys. The little spinning disks looked decorative, but Fiben knew better. The protection devices made any direct assault by irregular forces impossible.
Inside the compound there were five buildings. The largest, the chancery, had come equipped with a full suite of modern radio, psi, and quantum wave antennae—an obvious reason why the Gubru moved in after the former tenants cleared out.
Before the invasion, the Embassy staff had been mostly hired humans and chims. The only Tymbrimi actually assigned to this tiny outpost were the ambassador, his assistant/pilot, and his daughter.
The invaders weren’t following that example. The place swarmed with avian forms. Only one small building—at the top of the far hill across from Fiben, overlooking the ocean—did not show a full complement of Gubru and Kwackoo constantly coming and going. That pyramidal, windowless structure looked more like a cairn than a house, and none of the aliens approached within two hundred meters of it.
Fiben remembered something the general had told him before he left the mountains.
“If you get an opportunity, Fiben, please inspect the Diplomatic Cache at the Embassy. If, by some chance, the Gubru have left the grounds intact, there might be a message from my father there.”
Athaclena’s ruff had flared momentarily.
“And if the Gubru have violated the Cache, I must know of that, too. It is information we can use.”
It looked unlikely he’d have had a chance to do as she asked, whether the aliens respected the Codes or not. The general would have to settle for a visual report from far away.
“What d’you see?” Max asked. He calmly munched his sandwich as if one started a guerrilla uprising every day.
“Just a minute.” Fiben increased magnification and wished he had a better glass. As far as he could tell, the cairn at the top of the hill looked unmolested. A tiny blue light winked from the top of the little structure. Had the Gubru put it there? he wondered.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “But I think—”
His belt phone beeped—another bit of normal life that might end once fighting began. The commercial network was still in operation, though certainly monitored by Gubru language computers.
He picked up the phone. “That you, honey? I’ve been getting hungry. I hope you brought my lunch.”
There was a pause. When Gailet Jones spoke there was an edge in her voice. “Yes, dear.” She stuck to their agreed-upon code, but obviously did not relish it. “Pele’s marriage group is on holiday today, so I invited them to join us for a picnic.”
Fiben couldn’t help digging a little—just for verisimilitude, of course. “That’s fine, darling. Maybe you an’ I can find time to slip into the woods for some, y’know, ook ook.”
Before she could do more than gasp, he signed off. “See you in a little while, sweetie.” Putting down the phone, he saw Max looking at him, a wad of food in one cheek. Fiben raised an eyebrow and Max shrugged, as if to say, “None of my business.”
“I better go see that Dwayne ain’t screwed up,” Max said. He stood and dusted sand from his coveralls. “Scopes up, Fiben.”
“Filters up, Max.”
The big chim nodded and moved off down the hill, sauntering as if life were completely normal.
Fiben slapped the cover back on the engine and started the groomer. Its motor whistled with the soft whine of hydrogen catalysis. He hopped aboard and took off slowly down the hill.
The park was fairly crowded for a weekday afternoon. That was part of the plan, to get the birds used to chims behaving in unusual ways. Chims had been frequenting the area more and more during the last week.
That had been Athaclena’s idea. Fiben wasn’t sure he liked it, but oddly enough, it was one Tymbrimi suggestion Gailet had taken up wholeheartedly. An anthropologist’s gambit. Fiben sniffed.
He rode over to a copse of willows by a stream not far from the Embassy grounds, near the fence and the small, whirling watchers. He stopped the engine and got off. Walking to the edge of the stream, he took several long strides and leapt up onto the trunk of a tree. Fiben clambered to a convenient branch, where he could look out onto the compound. He took out a bag of peanuts and began to crack them one at a time.
The nearest watcher disk seemed to pause briefly. No doubt it had already scanned him with everything from X-rays to radar. Of course it found him unarmed and harmless. Every day for the last week a different chim had taken his lunch break here at about this time of day.
Fiben recalled the evening at the Ape’s Grape. Perhaps Athaclena and Gailet had a point, he thought. If the birds try to condition us, why can’t we turn the tables and do it to the birds?
His phone rang again.
“Yeah?”
“Uh, I’m afraid Donal’s suffering from a little flatulence. He may not be able to make it to the picnic.”
“Aw, too bad,” he muttered, and put the phone away. So far, so good. He cracked another peanut. The D-17 had been put into the pipes delivering hydrogen to the Embassy. It wo
uld still be several minutes before anything could be expected to happen.
It was a simple idea, even if he had his doubts. The sabotage was supposed to look like an accident, and it had to be timed so that Gailet’s unarmed contingent was in position. This raid was meant not so much to do harm as to create a disturbance. Both Gailet and Athaclena wanted information on Gubru emergency procedures.
Fiben was to be the general’s eyes and ears.
Over on the grounds he saw avians come and go from the chancery and other buildings. The little blue light atop the Diplomatic Cache winked against the bright sea clouds. A Gubru floater hummed overhead and began to settle toward the broad Embassy lawn. Fiben watched with interest, waiting for the excitement to begin.
D-17 was a powerful corrosive when left in contact with town-gas hydrogen for long. It would soon eat through the pipes. Then, when exposed to air, it would have yet another effect.
It would stink to high heaven.
He didn’t have long to wait.
Fiben smiled as the first squawks of consternation began to emanate from the chancery. Within moments the doors and windows burst forth with feathered explosions as aliens boiled out of the building, chirping in panic or disgust. Fiben wasn’t sure which and he didn’t really care. He was too busy laughing.
This part had been his idea. He broke a peanut and tossed it up to catch in his mouth. This was better than baseball!
Gubru scattered in all directions, leaping from upper balconies even without antigravity gear. Several writhed on broken limbs.
So much the better. Of course this wasn’t going to be much of an inconvenience to the enemy, and it could only be done once. The real purpose was to watch how the Gubru dealt with an emergency.
Sirens began to wail. Fiben glanced at his watch. A full two minutes had passed since the first signs of commotion. That meant the alarm was given manually. The vaunted Galactic defense computers weren’t omniscient then. They weren’t equipped to respond to a bad smell.
The watch buoys rose from the fence together, giving off a threatening whine, whirling faster than before. Fiben brushed peanut shells from his lap and sat up slowly, watching the deadly things warily. If they were programmed to extend the defense perimeter automatically, whatever the emergency, he could be in trouble.