The pair of small quadrupeds that gamboled around both human and thranx legs were covered with a bristly substance that he managed to identify as fur before the transport hummed on past. One had covering that differed significantly from that of its counterpart. It was also considerably larger, though neither would have come up to the underside of the poet’s abdomen. They had long faces, intelligent eyes, and jaws that resembled those of the AAnn more than they did those of their human associates.
He fought to recall the details of human society. As he remembered it, the bipeds not only consumed the butchered flesh of other creatures, they kept representatives of certain species in their own homes, as if the company of their own kind was insufficient to sate their need for companionship. In this regard, certain subspecies were more privileged than others. Among the latter were dogs, of which the two furry quadrupeds accompanying the strollers appeared to be legitimate representatives. What was especially fascinating was that despite their lack of sapience, the dogs appeared to be paying as much attention to the three thranx as to the two humans.
To the best of his admittedly restricted knowledge, no such creatures had been imported to Willow-Wane. They did not occupy space reserved for humans on Hivehom. Support facilities were designed to provide for humans, not their domesticated animal companions. It was costly enough to properly care for the bipeds. On the human homeworld no such restrictions would apply. The presence of the dogs had not entirely erased his concerns, but they had made it much easier for him to be convinced. The domesticated furry quadrupeds had appeared far too comfortable in the company of the three thranx to have been recently imported to a project site.
The transport slowed to a stop, settling to the floor with a whine. They were met by a pair of females wearing a type of insignia Desvendapur had never seen before. While the two scientists were whisked off to a separate destination, Des and Jhy were given a quick tour of the facilities where they would be working before being escorted to their new quarters. The two of them made arrangements to meet and share the nightfall meal along with the rest of the day’s experiences.
Waiting for his belongings to arrive, the poet inspected the double cubicle that would serve as his new home for an indeterminate period. Nothing was unfamiliar; little differed from the living chamber he had occupied at Geswixt. Everything appeared to be of thranx manufacture. Given the professed secretive nature of the nascent colony, he would have expected nothing else. The bipeds who were surreptitiously helping the thranx to establish a foothold on their own homeworld could hardly place an order with one of their local manufacturers for a load of thorax massagers.
He halted. Something rising from the equipment stand at the foot of the sleeping bench caught his eye. As he turned toward it, an odor as pleasant as it was subtle tickled his antennae. The small, carefully arranged cluster of flowers was unlike anything he had ever seen, with spreading white petals that shaded to deep purple at the base of the stamens. Bending close, he dipped his antennae forward to sample the essence of the bouquet. The stems rested in a fluted afterthought of tinted glass. If it had been grown on Willow-Wane or Hivehom, there was a group of botanists who deserved whatever compensation they had been allotted. But it did not smell of either of those thranx worlds. The amputated blossoms reeked of the here and now.
He looked forward to learning his way around the kitchen facility, but that pleasure was denied him until tomorrow. No one was expected to step off a shuttle after completing an interstellar journey and get right to work. If it was all part of a script to convince them they were on Earth when in fact they had never left home, it showed an attention to detail he could only admire. But with each passing time-part he became more and more convinced of the reality of the interstellar trek, and that they had truly arrived at a furtive colony-to-be hidden on the most hallowed of all human worlds.
He had hoped to encounter some of the bipeds, but the nightfall meal was attended only by fellow thranx. A number smelled strongly of outside, and of a moist, pungent, alien outside at that. He consoled himself with the knowledge that he would probably have the opportunity to interact with humans tomorrow or the next day. Had he not seen two of them walking casually in the company of three of his own kind on the way in? He had been patient this long; he could wait a while longer.
But as the days went by without even a glimpse of a human, he found himself growing uneasy. He had not traveled all this way, had not forged a false identity, to toil at the preparation of food for the rest of his life. Though he had mastered the limited demands of his new vocation, he was anxious to shed it and resume the mantle of full-time poet. In order to do that it was necessary for him to immerse himself in his chosen source of new inspiration. But that source remained as elusive as ever.
Where were the humans? Save for the pair he had passed on the day he and his fellow assignees arrived, the bipeds had been conspicuous by their absence. It was absurd to think that he might have less contact with the bipeds on their own world than on his. Yet for all the contact, inspirational or casual, that he had experienced so far he might as well have stayed on Willow-Wane. His frustration gave rise to several robust, acidic stanzas, but while well crafted and original they did not burn with the fervor of discovery he so desperately sought.
Any attempt to probe further would require great caution on his part. An assistant food preparator who was both persistent and inquisitive about subjects that were far removed from his official duties might well draw unwanted attention to himself. Any queries would have to be carefully framed and delivered in an offhand, almost indifferent manner. His coworkers in food preparation were notable for their lack of enlightenment.
Jhywinhuran was only marginally more helpful. Despite his intentions to keep his distance, he found himself drawn to her. Though her hive ranking was no lower than his, it was clear that she regarded him as her intellectual superior and looked up to him in matters outside their respective specialties. It was not a matter of flattery for ulterior motives or extraneous personal ends. Her attention and admiration were genuine. In her presence he relaxed far more than he intended. Constantly on guard, ever alert to the possibility of discovery, he luxuriated in the companionship of another of his kind who was openly fond of him no matter how mysterious his origins or how unforthcoming he was when certain subjects were broached.
In response to his query she informed him that she had actually seen humans on two occasions, but at a distance. There had been no personal contact. There was no reason for it to occur at her level. No doubt the rogue humans had to consort with their thranx friends on matters that reached beyond the boundaries of the colony. In matters of Jhywinhuran’s field of sanitation, outside advice and help would be necessary unless the incipient colony was designed to act as a completely closed system. That was possible, but only up to a point. That it was not the case was clear from the limited interaction that had taken place between human and thranx specialists on the two occasions that Jhy had observed.
But there was no reason for humans to come into the kitchens. Desvendapur and his coworkers needed no assistance in preparing the basics of the colony’s meals. That there was another feeding station he already knew from contact between the two. It was no consolation to him to learn that his counterparts in the other facility had no more interaction with humans than he did.
He had to find some way to reach out to them, to immerse himself in the strange culture of these creatures and their world. While personally satisfying, advancement in his adopted specialty promised nothing in the way of additional contact while exposing him to additional personal scrutiny he did not want. Given the extremely sensitive nature of the secret installation, like everyone else in the subterranean colony his movements were restricted. He was allowed to wander freely within the food service area and to roam the communal recreational and social intercourse areas, but everything else was strictly off-limits. This included the heavily camouflaged shuttle bay and all hive departments with access to the ou
tside, of which there were very few.
The location of these exits, the majority of which had been established for categorical emergency purposes only, were well known. Keeping them secret would only have obviated their purpose. No thranx, however curious, would brazenly defy restrictions by attempting to make unauthorized use of any such egress. Not only would it violate strict hive procedure, there was no reason to do so. Within the colony all was comfortable and familiar. Outside—outside lay an unknown alien world swarming with exotic fauna and dominated by an unstable intelligence. Who would want to go outside? Any sensible thranx who expressed a desire to do so would immediately find himself branded as unbalanced, marginally mad, or outright insane.
As a poet, Desvendapur qualified on multiple counts.
If he had spent all his time dwelling on his frustrations, he might well have ended up in the hospital. Aware of the dangers, he forced himself to concentrate on his work. It was much worse at night, when he had nothing to occupy his hands or mind, when he was free to meander both physically and mentally. Unable to fathom a reason for the agitation that sometimes bubbled to the surface of Desvendapur’s personality, Jhywinhuran did her best to comfort him. He responded as best he was able, but there were times when she could do nothing. How could she understand the nature of the creative fury that seethed within him, a raging torrent dammed and held back by stricture and circumstance?
It was a state of affairs that could not go on, he knew. Sooner or later his mounting frustration would overwhelm his good judgment and common sense. He would do something stupid and end up exposing himself. Then he would be removed from his duties, taken into custody, and shipped offworld for treatment and, inevitably, castigation. If his link to the death of the transport pilot Melnibicon was discovered, he would be subjected to worse than that. Any chance for a notable creative career, of course, would be permanently dashed.
How to inquire about matters outside his area of expertise without appearing too curious? After careful consideration of possible alternatives, he decided that a bold approach to one person offered fewer risks than dozens of furtive queries put to many different individuals.
He settled on a junior transport operator named Termilkulis who periodically delivered supplies to the kitchen facility. Cultivating friendship, slipping the active and efficient young male leftover delicacies from food storage, Des gradually drew him out until the operator felt completely comfortable in the assistant food preparator’s company.
It was early one morning, after preparations for the morning meal had been concluded and the results turned over to the division masters for final tinkering, that he encountered Termilkulis concluding a delivery. Remarking that he was about to take time for a rest, Desvendapur was gratified when the operator responded agreeably to the suggestion that they do so together. They retired to a back corner of the facility, near the narrow unloading dock, and assumed resting stances on all four trulegs and both foothands.
Following an indeterminate number of minutes spent in lazy contemplation of the morning that were interrupted only by inconsequential remarks, Des ventured casually, “It seems strange to me that, finding ourselves on the human homeworld, we do not see more of the natives.”
“Well, I don’t imagine that you would, working in the department that you do.” Wholly at ease, Termilkulis’s antennae drooped listlessly over his forehead.
Desvendapur indicated assent, careful to keep his gestures moderated and brief. “I suppose that’s true. What about you?” he asked with apparent indifference. “How many have you seen?”
The transport operator did not appear to find the question in any way out of the ordinary. “One or two.”
“But I would think that in the course of making deliveries throughout the colony you would surely have the opportunity to see many of the bipeds.”
“Not really. You know, for a while after I was first assigned here I wondered about the same thing myself.” The poet tensed, but it was evident from the operator’s attitude that the food preparator had not triggered any latent suspicion in the young driver. “So I inquired about the seeming discrepancy, and what I was told made perfect sense.”
“Did it?” responded Desvendapur casually. “Did it really?”
Termilkulis turned toward him. “This is a thranx colony, a thranx hive. Only a few humans, working for an enlightened but covert division of their government, know of its existence. It is designed to show that we can live among them, in sizable numbers, without adversely impacting their civilization. When the time comes, when the xenosociologists on both sides think it is all right, our existence will be revealed and will hopefully have a salutary effect on the bipeds’ opinion of us.
“But there is no reason for more than a very few of them to visit the hive. This is a thranx colony. As such, it is populated by thranx.” A foothand rose to gesture. “By such as you and me.”
It made damning, frustrating sense, Desvendapur knew. Why should any hive, even one located on the human homeworld, require the presence of humans? While the respective projects on Willow-Wane and Hivehom had been designed from the start to explore the ramifications of intimate human-thranx interaction, this colony was different. It was surreptitious, officially unacknowledged by both governments. It was designed to show that thranx could thrive on a human-dominated world. Open interaction here would come later, when both species had become acclimatized to the presence of the other, when humans did not find thranx abhorrent and vice versa.
This much he could understand. He also found many aspects of humankind distasteful. The difference between him and his fellow thranx was that for him, abhorrence was an excellent source of inspiration.
But how to immerse himself in that and its related emotional states if he was denied interaction with its progenitors, in all their billions? He would gladly settle for contact with a dozen or so, but it appeared that even that was to be denied him. He could not wait indefinitely for something to happen, for circumstances to change. His term of service was finite. More than that, he was too impatient to wait around and react. Fatalistic resignation was not a component of his character.
What to do? If he happened to see another human in the distance, walking the fringe of a sector off-limits to him, he could ignore restraint and brazenly confront the visitor. That might work—for a minute or two, until Security forestalled extensive interaction by hauling him away. Too much risk for too little potential reward. Or he could try to isolate a visiting biped, keep it to himself for a while, but even the suggestion of the use of force within the colony would find him shipped offworld faster than he could pack his meager belongings. With his access to vehicular transport, Termilkulis might be of real help—until he became aware of his new friend’s intentions. That would doubtless result in immediate termination of their relationship and the reporting of the food preparator’s eccentric behavior to hive authority.
No, whatever he did, Desvendapur decided quietly, he would have to do it on his own. His choices were decidedly limited. Or at least, the sensible, rational ones were. There remained the option of the insensible and the irrational. These were not available to the average thranx. Had there been anything average about Desvendapur, he would not even have been contemplating them.
The solution was as obvious as it was insane. If he could not find humans to interact with within the hive, then he would have to find a way to encounter them without.
11
As had quickly become his routine, Cheelo was awakened by the gothic choir of howler monkeys greeting the return of the sun. Lying on his back beneath the thin tropical blanket, he gazed up through the dense, featherweight material of the tent. This close to the Earth’s waist, the sun rose and set with equal alacrity. “Lingering twilight” was terminology that belonged to the temperate zone and had no place in the equatorial rain forest.
Yawning, he reached up to scratch an itch—and sat up fast, yelping. Looking down, he saw a rushing river of red-tinged brown flowing across
his stomach from left to right. The river entered through a hole in the left side of his tent and exited through a gap of correspondingly tiny dimensions on his right. It went over, around, or through anything and everything in its path. It might have gone through him as well if he had not been tucked into the tough, inedible blanket.
He had gone to sleep without activating the electronic insect repeller in his backpack.
The army ants had eaten through his tent because it was in their path. Able to surmount his sleeping form, they had chosen to go over him. This was fortunate, though he did not think so until later, when he had time to reflect on the closeness of his call. At the moment he was standing and screaming, slapping at the soldier ant that had sunk its mandibles deep into the flesh of his right thumb. Had he known more of army ants and their ways he would have reacted in a more circumspect fashion.
Detecting the release of alarm pheromones from their smashed colleague, a subsection of the living brown stream detached and attacked. Flailing wildly as if afflicted with some aberrant disorder of the nervous system, Cheelo hopped and stumbled out of the tent and the trees, across the open, intervening beach, and into the river. Even submerged, the ants hung on tenaciously. Since it was not the dry season and ample customary prey was available, the resident piranhas ignored this violent intrusion into their world. The four-meter long black caiman on the far bank did not, slipping silently into the water, its dragon’s tail cleaving the rippling, mirrored surface as it sinuously advanced to investigate. By the time it arrived, a fully awake and much chastened Montoya had slogged back onto the beach. Disappointed, the caiman sank back beneath the surface, its intended quarry as ignorant as ever of its majestic, carnivorous presence.
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