“Hmmm, well, some. A little dancin’, a little scratchin’, a little hootin’.”
Robert smiled. Fiben’s “accent” was always thickest when he had big news to downplay, the better to draw out the story. If allowed to get away with it, he would surely keep them up all night.
“Uh, Fiben …”
“Yeah, yeah. She’s up there.” The chim gestured toward the top of the ridge. “And in a right fey mood, if you ask me. But don’t ask me, I’m just a chimpanzee. I’ll see you later, Robert.” He picked up his book again, not exactly the model of a reverent client. Robert grinned.
“Thanks, Fiben. I’ll see ya.” He hurried up the trail.
Athaclena did not bother to turn around as he approached, for they had already said hello. She stood at the hilltop looking westward, her face to the sun, holding her hands outstretched before her.
Robert at once sensed that another glyph floated over Athaclena now, supported by the waving tendrils of her corona. And it was an impressive thing. Comparing her little greeting, earlier, to this one would be like standing a dirty limerick next to “Xanadu.” He could not see it, neither could he even begin to kenn its complexity, but it was there, nearly palpable to his heightened empathy sense.
Robert also realized that she held something between her hands … like a slender thread of invisible fire—intuited more than seen—that arched across the gap from one hand to the other.
“Athaclena, what is—”
He stopped then, as he came around and saw her face.
Her features had changed. Most of the humaniform contours she had shaped during the weeks of their exile were still in place; but something they had displaced had returned, if only momentarily. There was an alien glitter in her gold-flecked eyes, and it seemed to dance in counterpoint to the throbbing of the half-seen glyph.
Robert’s senses had grown. He looked again at the thread in her hands and felt a thrill of recognition.
“Your father …?”
Athaclena’s teeth flashed white. “W’ith-tanna Uthacalthing bellinarri-t’hoo, haoon’nda! …”
She breathed deeply through wide-open nostrils. Her eyes—set as wide apart as possible—seemed to flash.
“Robert, he lives!”
He blinked, his mind overflowing with questions. “That’s great! But … but where! Do you know anything about my mother? The government? What does he say?”
She did not reply at once. Athaclena held up the thread. Sunlight seemed to run up and down its taut length. Robert might have sworn that he heard sound, real sound, emitting from the thrumming fiber.
“W’ith-tanna Uthacalthing!” Athaclena seemed to look straight into the sun.
She laughed, no longer quite the sober girl he had known. She chortled, Tymbrimi fashion, and Robert was very glad that he was not the object of that hilarity. Tymbrimi humor quite often meant that someone else, sometime soon, would definitely not be amused.
He followed her gaze out over the Vale of Sind, where a flight of the ubiquitous Gubru transports moaned faintly as they cruised across the sky. Unable to trace more than the outlines of her glyph, Robert’s mind searched for and found something akin to it in the human fashion. In his mind he pictured a metaphor.
Suddenly, Athaclena’s smile was something feral, almost catlike. And those warships, reflected in her eyes, seemed to take on the aspect of complacent, rather unsuspecting mice.
PART THREE
The Garthlings
The evolution of the human race will not be accomplished in the ten thousand years of tame animals, but in the million years of wild animals, because man is and will always be a wild animal.
CHARLES GALTON DARWIN
Natural selection won’t matter soon, not anywhere near as much as conscious selection. We will civilize and alter ourselves to suit our ideas of what we can be. Within one more human lifespan, we will have changed ourselves unrecognizably.
GREG BEAR
43
Uthacalthing
Inky stains marred the fen near the place where the yacht had foundered. Dark fluids oozed slowly from cracked, sunken tanks into the waters of the broad, flat estuary. Wherever the slick trails touched, insects, small animals, and the tough salt grass all died.
The little spaceship had bounced and skidded when it crashed, scything a twisted trail of destruction before finally plunging nose first into the marshy river mouth. For days thereafter the wreck lay where it had come to rest, slowly leaking and settling into the mud.
Neither rain nor the tidal swell could wash away the battle scars etched into its scorched flanks. The yacht’s skin, once allicient and pretty, was now seared and scored from near-miss after near-miss. Crashing had only been the final insult.
Incongruously large at the stern of a makeshift boat, the Thennanin looked across the intervening flat islets to survey the wreck. He stopped rowing to ponder the harsh reality of his situation.
Clearly, the ruined spaceship would never fly again. Worse, the crash had made a sorrowful mess of this patch of marshlands. His crest puffed up, a rooster’s comb ridged with spiky gray fans.
Uthacalthing lifted his own paddle and politely waited for his fellow castaway to finish his stately contemplation. He hoped the Thennanin diplomat was not about to serve up yet another lecture on ecological responsibility and the burdens of patronhood. But, of course, Kault was Kault.
“The spirit of this place is offended,” the large being said, his breathing slits rasping heavily. “We sapients have no business taking our petty wars down into nurseries such as these, polluting them with space poisons.”
“Death comes to all things, Kault. And evolution thrives on tragedies.” He was being ironic, but Kault, of course, took him seriously. The Thennanin’s throat slits exhaled heavily.
“I know that, my Tymbrimi colleague. It is why most registered nursery worlds are allowed to go through their natural cycles unimpeded. Ice ages and planetoidal impacts are all part of the natural order. Species are tempered and rise to meet such challenges.
“However, this is a special case. A world damaged as badly as Garth can only take so many disasters before it goes into shock and becomes completely barren. It is only a short time since the Bururalli worked out their madness here, from which this planet has barely begun to recover. Now our battles add more stress … such as that filth.”
Kault gestured, pointing at the fluids leaking from the broken yacht. His distaste was obvious.
Uthacalthing chose, this time, to keep his silence. Of course every patron-level Galactic race was officially environmentalist. That was the oldest and greatest law. Those spacefaring species who did not at least declare fealty to the Ecological Management Codes were wiped out by the majority, for the protection of future generations of sophonts.
But there were degrees. The Gubru, for instance, were less interested in nursery worlds than in their products, ripe pre-sentient species to be brought into the Gubru Clan’s peculiar color of conservative fanaticism. Among the other lines, the Soro took great joy in the manipulation of newly fledged client races. And the Tandu were simply horrible.
Kault’s race was sometimes irritating in their sanctimonious pursuit of ecological purity, but at least theirs was a fixation Uthacalthing could understand. It was one thing to burn a forest, or to build a city on a registered world. Those types of damage would heal in a short time. It was quite another thing to release long-lasting poisons into a biosphere, poisons which would be absorbed and accumulate. Uthacalthing’s own distaste at the oily slicks was only a little less intense than Kault’s. But nothing could be done about it now.
“The Earthlings had a good emergency cleanup team on this planet, Kault. Obviously the invasion has left it inoperative. Perhaps the Gubru will get around to taking care of this mess themselves.”
Kault’s entire upper body twisted as the Thennanin performed a sneezelike expectoration. A gobbet struck one of the nearby leafy fronds. Uthacalthing had come to know that
this was an expression of extreme incredulity.
“The Gubru are slackers and heretics! Uthacalthing, how can you be so naively optimistic?” Kault’s crest trembled and his leathery lids blinked. Uthacalthing merely looked back at his fellow castaway, his lips a compressed line.
“Ah. Aha,” Kault rasped. “I see! You test my sense of humor with a statement of irony.” The Thennanin made his ridge crest inflate briefly. “Amusing. I get it. Indeed. Let us proceed.”
Uthacalthing turned and lifted his oar again. He sighed and crafted tu’fluk, the glyph of mourning for a joke not properly appreciated.
Probably, this dour creature was selected as ambassador to an Earthling world because he has what passes for a great sense of humor among Thennanin. The choice might have been a mirror image of the reason Uthacalthing himself had been chosen by the Tymbrimi … for his comparatively serious nature, for his restraint and tact.
No, Uthacalthing thought as they rowed, worming by patches of struggling salt grass. Kault, my friend, you did not get the joke at all. But you will.
It had been a long trek back to the river mouth. Garth had rotated more than twenty times since he and Kault had to abandon the crippled ship in midair, parachuting into the wilderness. The Thennanin’s unfortunate Ynnin clients had panicked and gotten their parasails intertangled, causing them to fall to their deaths. Since then, the two diplomats had been solitary companions.
At least with spring weather they would not freeze. That was some comfort.
It was slow going in their makeshift boat, made from stripped tree branches and parasail cloth. The yacht was only a few hundred meters from where they had sighted it, but it took the better part of four hours to wend through the frequently tortuous channels. Although the terrain was very flat, high grass blocked their view most of the way.
Then, suddenly, there it was, the broken ruin of a once-sleek little ship of space.
“I still do not see why we had to come back to the wreck,” Kault rasped. “We got away with sufficient dietary supplements to let us live off the land. When things calm down we can intern ourselves—”
“Wait here,” Uthacalthing said, not caring that he interrupted the other. Thennanin weren’t fanatical about that sort of punctilio, thank Ifni. He slipped over the side of the boat and into the water. “There is no need that both of us risk approaching any closer. I will continue alone.”
Uthacalthing knew his fellow castaway well enough to read Kault’s discomfort. Thennanin culture put great store in personal courage—especially since space travel terrified them so.
“I will accompany you, Uthacalthing.” He moved to put the oar aside. “There may be dangers.”
Uthacalthing stopped him with a raised hand. “Unnecessary, colleague and friend. Your physical form isn’t suited for this mire. And you may tip the boat. Just rest. I’ll only be a few minutes.”
“Very well, then.” Kault looked visibly relieved. “I shall await you here.”
Uthacalthing stepped through the shallows, feeling for his footing in the tricky mud. He skirted the swirls of leaked ship-fluid and made toward the bank where the broken back of the yacht arched over the bog.
It was hard work. He felt his body try to alter itself to better handle the effort of wading through the muck, but Uthacalthing suppressed the reaction. The glyph nuturunow helped him keep adaptations to a minimum. The distance just wasn’t worth the price the changes would cost him.
His ruff expanded, partly to support nuturunow and partly as his corona felt among the weeds and grass for presences. It was doubtful anything here could harm him. The Bururalli had seen to that. Still, he probed the surrounding area as he waded, and caressed the empathy net of this marshy life-stew.
The little creatures were all around him, all the basic, standard forms: sleek and spindly birds, scaled and horn-mouthed reptiloids, hairy or furry types which scuttled among the reeds. It had long been known that there were three classic ways for oxygen-breathing animals to cover themselves. When skin cells buckled outward it led to feathers. When they buckled inward there was hair. When they thickened, flat and hard, the animal had scales.
All three had developed here, and in a typical pattern. Feathers were ideal for avians, who needed maximum insulation for minimum weight. Fur covered the warm-blooded creatures, who could not afford to lose heat.
Of course, that was the only surface. Within, there was a nearly infinite number of ways to approach the problem of living. Each creature was unique, each world a wonderful experiment in diversity. A planet was supposed to be a great nursery, and deserved protection in that role. It was a belief both Uthacalthing and his companion shared.
His people and Kault’s were enemies—not as the Gubru were to the humans of Garth, of course, but of a certain style—registered with the Institute for Civilized Warfare. There were many types of conflict, most of them dangerous and quite serious. Still, Uthacalthing liked this Thennanin, in a way. That was preferable. It was usually easier to pull a jest on someone you liked.
His slick leggings shed the greasy water as he slogged up onto the mudbank. Uthacalthing checked for radiation, then stepped lightly toward the shattered yacht.
Kault watched the Tymbrimi disappear around the flank of the broken ship. He sat still, as he had been bid, using the paddle occasionally to stroke against the sluggish current and keep away from the oozing spills. Mucus bubbled from his breathing slits to drive out the stench.
Throughout the Five Galaxies the Thennanin were known as tough fighters and doughty starfarers. But it was only on a living, breathing planet that Kault and his kind could relax. That was why their ships so resembled worlds themselves, solid and durable. A scout craft made by his people would not have been swatted from the sky as this one had, by a mere terawatt laser! The Tymbrimi preferred speed and maneuverability over armor, but disasters such as this one seemed to bear out the Thennanin philosophy.
The crash had left them with few options. Running the Gubru blockade would have been chancy at best, and the other alternative had been hiding out with the surviving human officials. Hardly choices one lingered over.
Perhaps the crash had been the best possible branching for reality to take, after all. At least here there was the dirt and water, and they were amid life.
Kault looked up when Uthacalthing reappeared around the corner of the wreck, carrying a small satchel. As the Tymbrimi envoy slipped into the water, Uthacalthing’s furry ruff was fully expanded. Kault had learned that it was not as efficient at dissipating excess heat as the Thennanin crest.
Some groups within his clan took facts like these as evidence of intrinsic Thennanin superiority, but Kault belonged to a faction that was more charitable in outlook. Each lifeform had its niche in the evolving Whole, they believed. Even the wild and unpredictable wolfling humans. Even heretics.
Uthacalthing’s corona fluffed out as he worked his way back to the boat, but it was not because he was overheated. He was crafting a special glyph.
Lurrunanu hovered under the bright sunshine. It coalesced in the field of his corona, gathered, strained forward eagerly, then catapulted over toward Kault, dancing over the big Thennanin’s crest as if in delighted curiosity.
The Galactic appeared oblivious. He noticed nothing, and he could not be blamed for that. After all, the glyph was nothing. Nothing real.
Kault helped Uthacalthing climb back aboard, grabbing his belt and pulling him into the rocky boat head first. “I recovered some extra dietary supplements and a few tools we might need,” Uthacalthing said in Galactic Seven as he rolled over. Kault steadied him.
The satchel broke open and bottles rolled onto the fabric bottom. Lurrunanu still hovered above the Thennanin, awaiting the right moment. As Kault reached down to help collect the spilled items, the whirling glyph pounced!
It struck the famed Thennanin obstinacy and rebounded. Kault’s bluff stolidity was too tough to penetrate. Under Uthacalthing’s prodding, lurrunanu leapt again, furiously
hurling itself against the leathery creature’s crest at just the moment Kault picked up a bottle that was lighter than the others and handed it to Uthacalthing. But the alien’s obdurate skepticism sent the glyph reeling back once more.
Uthacalthing tried a final time as he fumbled with the bottle and put it away, but this time lurrunanu simply shattered against the Thennanin’s impenetrable barrier of assumptions.
“Are you all right?” Kault asked.
“Oh, fine.” Uthacalthing’s ruff settled down and he exhaled in frustration. Somehow, he would have to find a way to excite Kault’s curiosity!
Oh well, he thought. I never expected it to be easy. There will be time.
Out there ahead of them lay several hundred kilometers of wildlands, then the Mountains of Mulun, and finally the Valley of the Sind before they could reach Port Helenia. Somewhere in that expanse Uthacalthing’s secret partner waited, ready to help execute a long, involved joke on Kault. Be patient, Uthacalthing told himself. The best jests do take time.
He put the satchel under his makeshift seat and secured it with a length of twine. “Let us be off. I believe we’ll find good fishing by the far bank, and those trees will make for good shelter from the midday sun.”
Kault rasped assent and picked up his oar. Together they worked their way through the marsh, leaving the derelict yacht behind them to settle slowly into the endurant mud.
44
Galactics
In orbit above the planet the invasion force entered a new phase of operation.
At the beginning, there had been the assault against a brief, surprisingly bitter, but almost pointless resistance. Then came the consolidation and plans for ritual and cleansing. All through this, the major preoccupation of the fleet had been defensive.
The Five Galaxies were in a turmoil. Any of a score of other alliances might have also seen an opportunity in seizing Garth. Or the Terran/Tymbrimi alliance—though hard beset elsewhere—might choose to counterattack here. The tactical computers calculated that the wolflings would be stupid to do so, but Earthlings were so unpredictable, one could never tell.