“Dr. Averson, . . . I appreciate your effort. I’d appreciate a written analysis of the transcript for our files. Things have a way of coming clear when they’re written. If you would do that.”
“Yes, sir,” Averson replied. He looked much calmer, looked left at Degas as if to learn whether this was dismissal.
“Good day, doctor,” Koch said, waited patiently as Averson made his awkward and slow retreat, with backward glances as though he would gladly have stayed.
“Opinion,” Koch said to Degas.
Degas locked his hands across his belly, relaxed in his chair. “Cautious credence. I share your apprehensions about the bai; but there is merit in their position and in their offers.”
“I reckon they’ve read the scan also. They know those cities are live again; that’s what’s brought them running. The question is whether they know about Galey.”
“Possibly. Possibly not,” Degas said. “Our strong warning has had some effect, I believe.”
“On Flower’s safety, yes. We still haven’t accounted for their own operation, and the only possible motive their mission can have is provocation.”
“Observation.”
“Possibly.”
“They aren’t physically capable of getting into the sites. Chances are they suspect some operation like Galey’s. We might calm them by feeding them Galey’s reports openly; but I doubt they would put much weight on them.”
“Because their decision is already firm.”
Degas frowned; by his face he wanted to say something, finally gestured and did so. “Sir, I would suggest that we’re also operating under subconscious bias.”
“Meaning?”
“The regul are repulsive, aren’t they? No one likes them; the crew shies from them. It’s an emotional reaction, I’m afraid. There’s nothing lovely about them. But the fact is, the regul are nonviolent. They are safe neighbors. Of course the mri are appealing; humans find their absolutisms attractive. They have instincts that almost overlap our own . . . or seem to; they’re handsome to human eyes. But they’re dangerous, sir; the most cold-blooded killers ever let loose. Incompatible with all other life. We learned that over forty bloody years. Regul don’t look noble; they aren’t, by our rules; they’ll cheat, given the chance . . . but in terms of property, not weapons. They would be good neighbors. We can understand them. Their instincts overlap ours too; and we don’t like to look at that. Not nearly so attractive as the mri. But the end result of regul civilization is trade and commerce spread over all their territories. And we’ve had a first-hand look at the result of mri civilization too . . . the dead worlds.”
Koch made a face. It was truth, though something in it was sour in his belly. “But it’s rather like what Duncan said, isn’t it, Del—that we shape ourselves by what we do here. We become . . . what we do here.”
Degas’s face went flat and cold. He shook his head. “If we kill here, . . . we stop them. We stop them flat. It’s our doing; it doesn’t go any farther than that. We have to take the responsibility.”
“And we become the killers we kill to stop, eh? Paradox, isn’t it? We can sneak out of here regul-fashion and let the regul become the killers; or do our own killing, and how will regul look on us then, a species that looks like the mri, that could do what the mri did? Another paradox. What’s the human answer to this situation?”
“Side with the peaceful side,” Degas said too quickly, like a man with his mind long made up. “Blow this place.”
Koch sat and stared at him, thinking that the connection of those two ideas was not half so mad as might be. Not here. Not with mri.
“Pull up Galey’s mission,” Degas urged him. “And Flower too. You can’t entirely stop the regul from prodding about down there. Regul do that, keep pushing a situation. Humans can deal with that. Mri . . .”
“You’re still taking for granted mri control those weapons.”
“I don’t believe the possibility ought to be excluded on the basis of Galey’s report. There’s still only one answer when it comes down to who we want for neighbors. And preserving the mri is—”
Degas did not finish that. Koch sat back. “I propose you this, Del: regul are good traders. If we do what they don’t like, they’ll still come back and bargain again. We can do what we want here . . . and they’ll have to negotiate from that point, not a point of their choosing.”
Degas seemed to consider, slowly and at length. “Possibly. If there are no alternatives for them. Or if they don’t reach some instinctual limit as a result of something we do . . . like a mri alliance.”
“They’re likely to hire more mercenaries. Humans, maybe; a lot of our people are trained for war, Del; a lot are rootless, and some are hungry. Does that make regul such safe neighbors?”
A second and deeper frown from Degas. “I figure that’s more trouble for the regul than they want; they don’t take to human ways easily, not at depth. The mri never let the regul know them; and maybe that’s how they tolerated each other so long. We may be more open than the regul like. But that doesn’t change my advice. We can’t stay here forever. Can’t. I recommend we take the responsibility and get the ugly business over with.”
“No.”
“Then land a force if those cities are dead and you trust this report. Go in on foot and wipe out these deserted cities, destroy their automations and their power sources. Propose that to the regul for a compromise.”
“Reckoning—”
“That if the regul are right, the mri will resist with everything they have; we’ll throw it back at them doubled, and be done with this. And if they’re wrong and those sites aren’t used, then what harm would the destruction of power sources do . . . to declined and nomadic people? Let the mri exist. That’s the humane solution you asked. One the regul could accept; it’s reasonable; one we could accept; it’s moral. Give the mri what they need to live; let them live out their natural decline. Charity is well enough at that point.”
Koch considered it, rocked back and forth, weighed the possibilities. It began to make sense. It was, by all they knew, something that the regul could accept. He considered it further, staring at Degas’s tense and earnest face. “You wouldn’t have discussed that with Averson?”
“No. But I’m sure he could give you some sort of analysis of regul reaction, before putting it to them.”
“Flower might accept it Might.”
“Possibly,” Degas said, his eyes glittering.
“I want Averson’s opinion on it put it to him, as from yourself. Have it written up and on my desk as soon as possible.”
“Sir,” Degas said with uncharacteristic zeal.
* * *
To be back in the safety of Shirug . . . Suth breathed a sigh of profound relief as he eased his sled free of the shuttle’s confines, entered the landing bay. His youngling attendants puffed about in their own concerns, the securing of the ship. Suth locked into the nearest rail connection and punched the code of his own office.
Automation locked in, high priority. The sled shot into motion, whisking round the turns and through dark interstices of sled-passages, out into brief bright glimpses of foot corridors. Freight sleds went by with shock air, dead-stopped at intersections as, in his case, even other adult-sleds must stop. Sunk in his cushions he accepted the accelerations, his two hearts compensating for the shifting stresses. His blunt fingers punched in a summons, and he received acknowledgment that his staff was on its way.
They were already in his offices when he braked at the door, disengaged, and trundled through the anteroom and into his own territory. Morkhug’s youngling proffered him soi. He drank gratefully, having suffered depletion of his strength in this shifting about.
“Report,” he asked of his three mates, who waited on him.
“The two shuttles have dropped,” Nagn announced with evident satisfaction.
“Observed by any?”
“Questionable, reverence; they are at least down intact.”
Suth settled black, cup in hand, vastly relieved. “Flexibility,” he pronounced with a hiss. “My own operations were not without success. They are stalling, these humans. They have been set off balance by our demands, and they are talking.”
“The supplies with the shuttles,” said Morkhug, “will extend the life of the younglings onworld by ten days. We are considering the feasibility of recovery. We cannot afford to lose the machinery if we remain here and protract this situation.”
Suth drank and reflected on the matter. In eight days, panic would begin to set in among the younglings onworld, water for the humidifiers running short; and food . . . in increasing anxiety they would eat. They had oversupplied food in relation to water: better shortage of anything but food; the presence of it would satisfy them toward the terminal stages if no provision could be made to rescue them. Fear of hunger brought madness, irrational action. It was necessary that that reaction be staved off as long as possible.
Expendables: the younglings downworld knew it as these present here did. It was the eternal hope of younglings that efficiency would win favor and spare one from dying . . . the deep-rooted desire to feed and placate the governing elders, to be constantly reassured about one’s status. Recipient of such attentions’ and no longer bound by them, Suth settled into remote consideration of alternatives.
Deal with humans and thereby win access to supply food to the mission?
Koch’s reasoning nagged at him, blind, humanish obstinacy.
Regarding forgetting . . . . We use it with many meanings, bai Suth.
Precise forgetting?
The deliberate expunging of data?
One could alter one’s reality and all time to come. Was this linked future-memory and imagination?
Suth shuddered.
* * *
“Food,” Melek breathed anxiously, tearing at the wrappings of the supply packets; its fingers were all but numb: the cold crept in everywhere, despite the wrappings with which they swathed themselves, and the biodome which, with its flooring and translucent walls, attempted to provide them some measure of moving space in their base. Four shuttles clustered about the dome, dimly visible in the dawning, where basin haze made the daybreak the hue of milk, where the shadow of a seamount drifted disembodied and lavender above the haze. All of them avoided that exterior view whenever possible; the flatnesses, they were not so bad; but the barren sand, the eternal emptiness, the color of the earth, the alienness of it . . . these were terrible. The regular thudding of the compressor measured their existence within the air-supported dome. The air was supposed to be heated, but the nights, the dreadful nights, when the sun sank and vanished in mid-sky . . . brought chill; and fearsome writhings disturbed the floor of the biodome, the life of Kutath, seeking moisture, seeking warmth; they wore footgear when they must go out to the ships, hastened, shuddering at the slithering whips and cables which attempted to impede them and to invade their suits and their doorways.
Now two more lostlings were sent among them. Melek chewed at the concentrates, its trembling somewhat abated; its comrade Pegagh sat munching on soi nuts, the while the newcomers settled in among them. Magd and Hab their names were, Alagn like Pegagh. Melek, of Geleg doch, regarded them all with suspicion, its double hearts laboring in the dull dread that they were to be held here too long, that the calculations it had made were inaccurate, and it was not valued and honored for being of another doch than Alagn . . . quite the contrary. Melek did not speak such things, certainly not to them; and made no complaints, as Pegagh did not: one never knew in what eat such complaints would be dropped should they survive. There was a swelling in Melek’s throat that made swallowing difficult in such contemplations. They flew their missions precisely as told; they beamed Eldest’s tape over the wide flat nothingness.
They hoped, forlornly, to be taken home and fed and comforted.
Now they were four.
There were ten shuttles in all; and four of them sat here. Two more coming down could not carry supplies sufficient to make the trip worthwhile: they would then be six marooned down here . . . a matter of diminishing returns. There would be no more supplies. Melek made the calculations with interior panic.
Perform.
Obey orders precisely.
Hope for favor and life.
It was all they had.
Chapter Thirteen
Duncan looked a sorry sight under any circumstances. Stripped naked and in daylight he was sadder still, scrubbing away at himself with handfuls of sand to take the blood and grime away. Niun worked at his own person, the two of them alone on the edge of camp where the slight rolling of the land gave them a measure of privacy and the wind blew clear. He rubbed dust into his mane and shook it until the dust was gone, scrubbed his skin until it stung and then quickly sought the warmth of clean robes, shivering in the wind.
Duncan managed the same for himself, although his hair coated skin would not shed the sand so easily and the hair of his head was prone to retain the dust. Still he labored fastidiously at it, sitting somewhat sheltered from the wind, and his stress thinned limbs shivered so that Niun took concern for him and held his robes between him and the treacheries of the breeze.
“Come, you are clean enough. Will you not make haste about it? My arms tire.”
Duncan stood and shrugged into the robes, shivered convulsively, and fastened the inner robe with its cloth belts, the while Niun sat down again on the side of the slope to work his boots on.
Duncan coughed a little, smothered it. Niun looked up anxiously. Duncan ignored the matter and sat down again, began with a little oil and the blade of one as-en, to scrape away at the hair on his face. Niun regarded the process with furtive glances. It was a matter of meticulous care with Duncan, and a difference between them which Duncan sought assiduously to hide, which humans in general did, for Niun supposed that all had this tendency and that all cared for it as Duncan did, not the hair of the body but that of the face: a tsi’mri observance he continued as compatible with mri, perhaps, or simply that the veil was the one portion of clothing a kel’en could not maintain in the camp.
And Niun deliberately sought privacy for Duncan to attend to his person, so that the newcomers should not see the differences of his body. He was vaguely ashamed at this deception, although Duncan freely consented in it. He remained uncertain whether Duncan did so out of shame of his own structure, or out of some consideration for him, not to embarrass him. Niun greatly suspected the latter . . . but asking Duncan why—that required delving into tsi’mri thoughts. It had been more comfortable to ignore the matter, and to provide Duncan that measure of privacy, the two of them.
Duncan lived, and that was enough at the moment. He was wan and thin and slow in his movements as an old man, but alive, and without the bleeding this bright morning. It was a good thing in a man, that he wake with a sudden concern for his appearance and his cleanliness, and an evidence of impatience with his own condition: It was a good thing.
This morning there seemed much of good in the world.
The dusei were out and away, lost somewhere in the haze of the amber morning . . . presumably hunting as they should be, and not out troubling the camps which lay over the horizons on all sides of them. The stranger-kel’en had settled into camp, in a makeshift patchwork of three shades of canvas on ropes between sen-tent and Kel. There was a quiet there, sensible mri folk who were not going to provoke quarrels in stupidity, as sensibly silent and observing as folk were who knew they might be set to kill, and who could profit from understanding as much as possible and seeing clearly and without passion. Their own she’panei directed them to take orders within the camp; they did so, adapting to strangeness with the confidence that came of knowing their own tribes relied on them for eyes and ears . . . the Face-Turned-Outward of their she’panei. Even the ja’anom were unwontedly reasonable, for all Duncan’s presence among them. It would not last; but it was, for the moment, good.
In the camp, children of the Kath played, laughing
aloud and having the energy at last to skip and run. They had caught a snake this dawn, unfortunate creature which had strayed in seeking the camp’s moisture. Nothing ventured into camp wily enough to escape the sharp-eyed children, who added it triumphantly to the common pot. They teased and played at pranks, amusing even the sober strangers.
And that laughter, reaching them, was a comfort to the heart more than all others.
“Why the face?” Niun asked in sudden recklessness.
Duncan looked up, wet a finger in his mouth, touched a bleeding spot his chin. He seemed perplexed by the question, but quite unoffended.
“Why the face and not—” Niun made a gesture vaguely including his own body.
Duncan grinned, a shocking expression in his gaunt, half-tanned face, which was brown about the eyes and not elsewhere. More, he laughed silently. “It would take a long time. Should I?”
That was not the sober reaction Niun had expected. He found himself embarrassed, frowned and touched his brow. “Here is mri, sov-kela. The outside is a veil, like the other veil. You and I are alike enough.”
Duncan went sober indeed, and seemed to understand him.
“My brother,” Niun said, “pleases himself by this. For them—” He gestured widely toward the mingled and all the camps about.
Duncan shrugged, “Should I remove it all?”
“Gods,” Niun muttered, “no.”
And Duncan confounded him by an inward smite, a nod. “I hear you.”
“My brother is perverse as a dus.”
“And similarly coated.”
Niun hissed, high exasperation, and found himself compelled to laugh because Duncan could so deftly lead him.
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