They were two eight-days out and he was sleeping soundly in his private cubicle when he heard the noise. It was a muffled creaking, repeated at regular intervals. Since the components of a thranx vessel fit together seamlessly, it was difficult to imagine what might be causing noise sufficient to wake him. As he regained consciousness, lying in the dark on the low sleeping bench, he listened intently to the soft, unsettling sounds. He did not have to open his eyes because they were always open. He had only to struggle to pull together the constituent bits and pieces of his consciousness.
The subtle shushing was produced by the movement of clothing against the body of its wearer. But it was not the slick rush of thranx protective attire against smooth, hard chitin. The noise that had awakened him was more subtle, almost as if cloth were being dragged across water.
Looking up, he saw the shape looming over him. In the twilight that filled the cubicle it was enormous and unarguably human. From his studies Des knew that specific bipeds varied considerably in size, as opposed to other sapient species like the thranx or the AAnn whose individual physical dimensions were relatively consistent. This one was at least twice as big as the solitary male he had encountered in the exposed air of Geswixt. An enormous waterfall of tangled black fur sprouted from its face and head to hang down over the upper portion of its chest and shoulders. Its eyes were black and protruding. Its immense five-digited hands, of which the creature had only two, gripped a shiny length of projection-studded metal that was vaguely ominous in outline. The creature wore a heavy jacket of some dun-colored material and matching pants, and its single pair of feet were shod in calf-high black boots fashioned from some muted, reflective material.
Towering above his bed, it glared down at him, showing the even, white teeth that served the same function as normal mandibles. Its entire aspect was quietly intimidating. No empathetic “Are you all right?” greeted the awakening of the single sleeper. From head to foot the massive figure was the perfect embodiment of alien nightmare.
Despite the insulation, he could hear some commotion outside the door to his cubicle. There were high-pitched whistles that passed for screams, followed by the muted whisper of running feet and loud, anxious conversation. Querulous mandibular clicks filtered into his quarters from the corridor outside as if it had been invaded and was being assaulted by a horde of migrating carnivorous metractia from Trix.
Raising his upper body off the sleeping bench he whispered in the direction of the cubicle’s scri!ber. The aural pickup winked to life. “Projective intrusion noted. Presumed unscheduled emotional stability test acknowledged. Returning to sleep.” When no further vocals were forthcoming from the sleepy occupant of the room, the scri!ber winked off, having duly made note of Desvendapur’s terse report.
Glancing to his right, he saw that the forbidding figure had vanished. The projection really had been well done, he mused as he drifted back toward unconsciousness. Had he been confronted with it the previous year he undoubtedly would have joined the others who had been assailed with the same nocturnal visitation in scrambling in panic for the corridor outside his cubicle. But he was not the same individual he had been then. He knew more now—a great deal more. That acquired knowledge was reflected in the calm with which he had confronted the figure, and in his ability to return readily to a state of uninvolved repose.
Following the daybreak meal the four fellow travelers were called away from the other passengers to a private, secured conspectus session in a spacious meeting chamber. Warm earth tones dominated the décor, and the walls exuded the familiar fragrance of rammed earth and decomposing vegetation. The two senior researchers who debriefed them were especially intrigued with Desvendapur’s laconic reaction to the finely rendered three-dimensional imaging of the previous night.
“You did not panic when confronted with the human visualization,” the elder, a female, declared almost accusingly. “To greater and lesser extent, your colleagues did.”
Des was aware that this time not only Jhy but the two scientists were watching him curiously. Had he stepped too boldly outside his carefully constructed identity? Should he, too, have run out into the hall whistling in fear and panic? But he had been awakened from a sound sleep and had reacted, not as a false persona, but as himself, bringing into play all the knowledge he had acquired in the past year. He could only hope that it would not mark him so singularly as to prompt a probe from which this time he might not emerge unscathed.
Realizing that the longer he delayed responding the greater the likelihood of suspicion germinating in the minds of his interrogators, he replied succinctly, “I saw no immediate reason for alarm.”
A slightly younger male questioner spoke up sharply. Desvendapur wondered if in addition to being recorded, this encounter was also being broadcast to and studied by an unknown number of other suspicious professionals.
“An armed alien of considerable size and menacing aspect appears without warning in your sleeping quarters in the middle of the night, waking you from a deep rest, and instead of panicking you immediately recognize the intrusion as specious, react accordingly, and go back to sleep. How many thranx do you think would react in such a fashion?” Awaiting his response, every antenna in the chamber was inclined in his direction. He hoped he was not emitting a strong odor of concern.
“Probably very few.”
“Probably not more than a handful.” The female’s tone was sharp, incisive but without overtones of anger. “An assistant food preparator from Willow-Wane would not generally be accounted a member of that group.”
Subdued light glinted off the curve of the male’s eyes. “How did you recognize so quickly that the intruder was a projection, and therefore posed no threat to you?”
“From his clothing.” This time Des replied promptly and without hesitation.
The interrogators exchanged a glance and passing antenna contact. “Every effort was made to ensure the verisimilitude of the human’s appearance. What was wrong with its clothing?”
“There was nothing wrong with it. At least,” the poet hastened to add, “nothing that I, based on my own private studies of humans and their habits and accouterments, could see.”
“Then why did you react so calmly?” the male pressed him. “What about the appearance of the simulacrum’s attire told you that it could not be real?”
“There was too much of it.” Des felt safe in indicating mild amusement. “Humans thrive in a climate of considerably less heat and one-third the humidity that thranx enjoy. They can endure what we consider optimum living conditions, but they are not comfortable in them. And what we would regard as an excessive but tolerable climate could prove fatal to even well-adapted humans.” Feeling more confident, he shifted easily on the resting bench.
“The temperature in my quarters was, if anything, set slightly warmer and moister than usual to accommodate my personal sleeping preferences. The bipedal figure wore not less than two layers of heavy human clothing. According to my studies, no human—no matter how well acclimated to Willow-Wane or Hivehom or any thranx world—would voluntarily wear a fourth as much apparel. Its system could not tolerate it for more than a time-part or so without suffering serious overheating. Yet the figure that woke me from my sleep did not appear even slightly inconvenienced by the microclimate in my room. The characteristic cooling condensation known as sweat was not present on its skin at all.” He looked from his interrogators to his colleagues. “That’s how I knew it couldn’t be a real human.”
The examiners looked briefly to their scri!bers before the female replied. With a truhand she indicated not suspicion or accusation, but admiration. “You are observant beyond your station, Desvenbapur. It is no wonder you were chosen to participate in as significant an undertaking as this.”
He hastened to demur. “I have always tried to learn everything possible about any task I was involved with, whether it concerned food preparation or anything else. The simulacrum could have fooled me. It just happened that I was stud
ying that section provided to us that deals with human physiology only last eight-day, and remembered it right away. It was at the front of my memory.”
“A fine memory,” she complimented him. “I would let you prepare my food anytime.” Indicating that their involvement in the meeting was concluded, she and her companion rose and left the room. Their place was taken by four new officials, one of whom had two full stars inset into her right shoulder.
Desvendapur leaned toward Jhy and whispered. “I wonder what we have done to deserve the attention of so much rank.”
“I don’t know.” She was grooming an antenna, bending it forward and down with her left truhand and running the sensory organ delicately through her mandibles. “You certainly elevated yourself in the project’s estimation with your actions last night.”
“I was lucky.” Using a surreptitious foothand, he stroked her upper abdomen. Her ovipositors reacted with a slight quiver. “Easy enough to be nonchalant in the presence of a projected simulacrum. Next time I will probably be the one who runs screaming.”
“Somehow I don’t think so.” She would have said more, but the first of the newly arrived ranking elders was speaking to them.
“You four will be joining and participating in what many eints have dubbed the most important social experiment in thranx history. As you know from your studies, ever since contact was first made we have found these bipedal mammals to be at once fascinating and frightening, refreshing and appalling, useful and dangerous. They are an aggressive, inventive species that exhibits a disturbing tendency to act before thinking. More often than you might expect, this produces results that are not to their benefit. Yet they will plunge blindly on, sometimes even when they are aware that what they are doing is detrimental to their own cause. It has been theorized that they have too much energy for their own good.
“Based on our initial contacts with them they are, I am pleased to report, not fond of our old friends the AAnn. But neither are they openly antagonistic toward them. Their attitude toward us is characterized by an unreasonable, irrational fear of the innumerable small arthropods that inhabit their own world, against which they have been waging a war not merely for dominance but for survival since they acquired the first stirrings of sapience. Our physical appearance was therefore something of a shock to them, from which only the most intelligent and responsive of their kind have managed to recover. Progress in advancing relations has therefore been much slower than either government would like. Yet to rush matters risks alienating the more conservative among our own kind while simultaneously activating the latent xenophobia that is regrettably endemic among the vast majority of humans.
“Overall, their present attitude toward us might best be characterized as a suspicious ambivalence. It is hoped that this will correct itself with time. In the interim, various proposals have been put forth, by both sides, for different means of accelerating the process of contact.”
“The project,” the meteorologist pointed out.
“Yes.” It was the two-star who responded. “Everyone who wants to be or needs to be—human as well as thranx—is familiar with the project and its estimable goals.” Her great golden eyes lingered individually on each of the four designates. “What is not known except among the highest representatives of both governments is that a similar project has been established elsewhere.”
“The need for secrecy is absolute,” a third supervisor commented tersely. “As suspicious and mistrustful as the humans are of us, it is believed they would react in a manner most unfriendly to the revelation that not simply a contact post, but the beginnings of a real colony were being established in their midst.”
Desvendapur was not sure he had heard correctly. The thranx had begun establishing colonies on habitable worlds generations ago, but to the best of his knowledge they had never tried to situate one on a world already inhabited by another intelligent species. The idea of establishing a full-blown hive on a human-occupied world was more than daring. Many would call it foolhardy.
Yet he sensed this was not a test, as the simulacrum of the previous night had been. The supervisors were as serious as a pregnant female about to lay.
“Which world?” the engineer asked. “Centaurus Five, or one of the other Centaurian spheres?”
“None of those.” The two-star was speaking again. If possible, her manner was more serious than before. “It is to this colony that you have been assigned. It is there that you will be working, often in closer quarters with humans than any thranx anywhere else. Nothing of this kind has ever been attempted before. You will be part of a pioneering interspecies social experiment.” Lifting a scri!ber, she flicked a control on the panel. A fully featured three-dimensional globe appeared in the air between supervisors and incipient colonists.
“The great majority of humans are unaware of it, and if everything goes according to plan they will remain so for quite some time, but there is even as we speak an expanding thranx presence here, growing and thriving with the help of a few dedicated, farseeing humans.”
As she spoke the global image rotated before them, the view zooming in and out at the whim of the controller. It was a beautiful world, Desvendapur thought, swimming beneath its sea of thin white clouds. Not as beautiful as Hivehom, or even Willow-Wane, but except for the prevalence of large oceans, an inviting planet nonetheless. He wondered which of the human-colonized worlds they were seeing, wondered what the name of their destination might be.
The one supervisor who had not spoken yet now stood back on all four trulegs and proceeded to enlighten, elucidate, and explain.
“Burrowers, fellow hive pioneers, future colonists, here is your destination. I extend to you all an early welcome—to Earth.” Turning, he gesticulated somberness mixed with humor. “After all, if the humans can be allowed to have a colony on Hivehom, why should we not have reciprocal privileges on their homeworld?”
9
They looked like a prosperous couple. Too staid to be romantic, walking side by side without touching or holding hands, they had probably gone for a stroll in the tropical downpour so they would be able to tell their friends back home that they had done it. Anyone with any sense would have stayed inside a nice dry hotel until the clouds closed back up. That was what the permanent residents of San José were doing. That was what the great majority of tourists were doing.
But not these two. Since they were wearing matching electrostatic repulsion rain gear, only their hands were getting wet, and these only when they emerged from large, accommodating pockets. The tepid water struck the invisible protective fields and slid off, leaving the strollers and the expensive clothing they wore underneath comfortable and dry.
Montoya followed them at a discreet distance. There were a few others out walking or running through the heavy rain. In the hilly downtown historical district there were always people making deliveries or pickups. There were plenty of other tourists out and about besides the couple he had targeted, but they were sensibly holed up in gift shops, restaurants, or hotel lobbies, waiting for the storm to piss itself out.
Hold-ups were not Cheelo’s preferred mode of personal enrichment. He disliked confrontations. Like narcotics, mugging was a bad habit that could all too easily become addictive. He’d seen it happen to acquaintances. He would have seen it happen to friends, if he’d had any. Given a choice, he would have preferred to rifle a hotel room or two, or pick a plump pocket, or lift a purse. No such opportunity had presented itself for days. Now he was growing anxious.
One more good score, just one more, and he would have all the good-faith money he needed to present to Ehrenhardt to secure the franchise. Well ahead of the deadline that had been set, too. Ehrenhardt and his people would be suitably impressed—which was Montoya’s intention.
This would not be the first time he had mugged. Unlike a number of younger compatriots he derived no thrill from it, got no adrenaline rush from seeing the look of fear on the faces of his intended victims. With him it was all business
, in the tradition of professional highwaymen going back to archaic times. To fulfill his dream he needed a few hundred credits more. These negligent travelers would provide it.
He continued to track the couple, pausing when they paused, turning to peer into a store window whenever they chanced to look in his direction. For the most part he remained invisible, another tourist like themselves out for a lazy afternoon’s stroll in the rain. Only unlike them, he was unable to afford expensive water-repulsion rain gear. Already he was damp and uncomfortable beneath his old-fashioned maroon slicker.
In a sense he was a tourist, having come up from Golfito specifically to make the money necessary to buy the franchise. He had learned early in life that it was better to keep one’s place of business separate from one’s current home. Avoiding the authorities was difficult enough without living in the same city as the ones who would be most interested in finding him. Besides, there were far more opportunities to accumulate the requisite credit in bustling San José than in the smaller, sleepier city on the coast.
He tensed slightly, preparing his thoughts and muscles, and began to walk a little faster, closing the gap between himself and the perambulating couple. They had turned down one of the city’s quaint alleys, a narrow street with scoured cobblestone sidewalks.
He was reaching inside his coat when they unexpectedly stepped into a store specializing in the distinctive woodwork for which the city was famed. Forced to continue on past, he glanced surreptitiously at the paduk and cocobolo handicrafts on display in the window. The next store was closed. Beyond, a serviceway barely wide enough to admit one person at a time split the line of old buildings as it penetrated to the heart of the block. Ducking inside, he found some shelter from the rain.
He waited there, biding his time, occasionally leaning out to look back up the hill. The sodden stones were deserted. Rain staccatoed off the pavement, fleeing in small distinct rivulets into the nearest storm drain. If the couple chose to retrace their steps instead of extending their excursion, he would have no choice but to continue following them, like a caiman marking the progress of a tentative tapir grazing along a riverbank.
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