She retreated several steps, struggling to moderate her breathing. Good Nevan’s strategy had failed. For whatever reason his attempt to mind-suggest the Amplitur representative had not worked. He had evidently been discovered, his ability revealed, and had been forced to fall back on violence to protect the secret of the Core talent. The scenario was entirely believable. Indeed, Straat-ien had more or less described it to her.
What she did not understand and could not imagine was how the Amplitur had in turn managed to kill its Human assailant.
It was possible that the guard was more worldly than she appeared. Perhaps she understood the meaning of Lalelelang’s trembling. Regardless, she beckoned the Wais over, bent toward Lalelelang and lowered her voice.
“One of ’em’s the squid, all right. The others are Human.”
Lalelelang cocked her head slightly to the left, expressing surprise. “Others?”
“Senior Human officers. One of them’s General Levaughn himself. The other’s a colonel I don’t know.”
She was remarkably composed. The ultimate component of self-control, she thought. Or the beginnings of paralysis. “You are certain both Humans are dead?”
The female gave a curious little shake of her head. Her close-cropped hair was so blonde as to be nearly white. “That’s the report. Shot through. All three of ’em were apparently armed.”
Lalelelang involuntarily dropped her lower beak. “The Amplitur was armed?”
“That’s what the preliminary report says.” The soldier’s brow contracted with the stress of thinking. “Didn’t know any of ’em carried arms. I always heard they hated violence. Course, there’s still a lot we don’t know about the squids. Guess there can be exceptions to any rule.”
“Is there any indication as to what provoked the tragedy?”
“Not that I’ve heard. Somebody must’ve really holed it.” She shook her head ruefully. “Bad business, this. Very bad. I got a quick look inside before they sealed it off. What a mess. Bodies are so badly shot up they can’t tell who fired first, or even who shot who, much less why. Could be we’ll never know.”
“Although the war has been over for years, serious arguments between individuals of different species are not unknown,” Lalelelang ventured lamely.
“You don’t have to tell me. Daccarans like to settle things the old way. I been involved in a couple of scrapes myself. But nothing like this.”
“You say all three were badly … shot up. Has the attending pathologist rendered any kind of preliminary report?”
“No idea. No reason to keep me and my buddies up on stuff like that. Having had a look, though, I’ll give you my own opinion on one thing.”
“What is that?”
The soldier’s voice was cold. “None of ’em had a chance. Not even a Hiviphys could do anything with that mess. Got to be able to tell the pieces apart before you can try putting ’em back together again.”
“I am certain you are correct.” Lalelelang took a querulous step forward. “It may be that I can learn something if I am allowed in. Do you mind if I try? Those in charge can do no more than refuse me entrance.”
Bone and muscle shifted to block her path. “Sorry, uh, ma’am. I’m afraid I can’t do that. I’m sure you’re a visiting scholar and all that, just like you claim, but it doesn’t matter. Our orders are that nobody gets inside. ‘Diplomatic incident,’ violation of the integrity of the premier’s compound: you understand.”
Lalelelang did not try to press it farther. “Of course. Can I at least stand here and observe?”
The female shrugged. “Don’t know how much you’ll see, but as long as you don’t get in anyone’s way I guess it’s okay. We’ve been ordered to keep everyone out, not to clear the building.”
“Your kindness commends you,” Lalelelang replied opulently. The finesse was lost on the soldier.
She stood and watched, and waited. After a while two shrouded shapes were wheeled out. The forms beneath the enveloping sheets were roughly Human in outline. Certainly neither of them was Amplitur.
The remains of that individual were brought out later, in many pieces. From what little Lalelelang could see the helpful Human soldier had been, if anything, conservative in her appraisal.
She remained a long while, wanting badly to talk with the attending Hivistahm physician. Besides, she had no desire to go anywhere else. But the Hivi vanished in tandem with the remains of the Amplitur, not to return, and still the guards refused to let her pass.
Subsequently she spent a horrible evening in her apartment, acutely conscious of the fact that she was isolated on a Human world, her sole friend having most unbelievably succumbed to the fatal consequences of a botched undertaking. She half-expected that at any moment her part in the enterprise would be discovered, whereupon strapping, stern-faced Human soldiers would arrive to carry her off to be questioned by methods she fought desperately against envisioning.
Her door stayed silent. As time passed undisturbed she began to feel a little more confident. After all, how much of a connection could anyone divine? She and Straat-ien had spent time in each other’s company, but had been careful not to be blatant about it. They had arrived separately at the compound. There was no reason for anyone to suspect some sort of subtle connection between Human and Wais.
She knew she would be questioned eventually, though, if only because she had known him.
The following morning came and went placidly. An ominous calm pervaded the atmosphere of the retreat. She went for a walk simply to show herself, to prove that she was not being secretive or in hiding. By late afternoon the only one who had activated her door was a service Lepar performing its regular cleaning rounds. It silently freshened her room and changed her nesting material.
News of the general’s death did not appear in the daily media. That was understandable. It would not do a politician like Cosgrave any good to have it known that an important guest had died in a firefight while at one of his residences.
No one came to confront her. As far as she knew she was free to leave at any time. That was what she desperately wanted to do: head for the nearest shuttleport and book passage homeward, there to retire to the tranquillity of the academic life once more and forever. Unbelievably, unaccountably, her old friend Straat-ien was dead. The Amplitur envoy was dead, and the invidious General Levaughn likewise defunct. It appeared that the manner of their passing was destined to remain forever a mystery to her. Fine and good. She had done all she could. It was time to have a care for herself.
Straat-ien’s death had not been in vain. The Amplitur would have to replace Cast-creative-Seeking with one of their own not so well versed in Human psychology. Cautious as ever, they would probably call a halt to their attempts to secure Human allies until they felt they better understood what had gone wrong on Daccar. As for the death of General Levaughn, it should put a serious crimp in the growth of reactionary political forces on Daccar. Presumably the Core would follow up on its complete, if blighted, success.
She realized that the supersecretive organization of which Straat-ien had once been an important member would also eventually want to question her. Inwardly she sighed. Try as she might to distance herself from what had happened, she could not eliminate what others thought she might know.
Sudden terror sent a ripple through her back feathers. What if the Amplitur also sought her out? A simple suggestion from any of them and she would find herself helplessly divested of all her secrets.
She forced herself to be calm. There was no reason for them to question her. She was a well-known Wais academic. Yes, she was a student of Human behavior, but so were a number of other non-Humans. Yes, she had known one of the two deceased Humans, but she had known many Humans. As far as the Amplitur were concerned there was nothing to connect her intimately with the incident that had occurred the previous night. The Amplitur were perceptive, but they were not prescient.
Still, she would take care to avoid them. On Mahmahar that should
be a simple matter.
She regretted the loss of a friend. Over the years Straat-ien had certainly become that. He could not help his Humanness. Having forgiven him that while he was alive, she could do no less now that he was gone. His passing affected her almost, but not quite, as much as would that of a fellow Wais.
Her remorse did not prevent her from making arrangements to leave Daccar the next day. If any of Straat-ien’s associates wanted to question her, they would have to follow the path he had previously taken to her homeworld. There she could arrange to meet with them in secrecy and some confidence.
She was able to prepare her nest without listening for the door, and her confidence continued to be justified. No one troubled or questioned her preparations for departure. She stayed up late, watching the local media and burying herself in the casual notes she had recorded prior to the disaster.
So relaxed had she become by the time she extinguished the apartment illumination that she fell immediately into a deep and restful sleep, from which she was abruptly and unexpectedly awakened in the middle of the night by the insistent buzzing of her door.
XXI
“Go away!” Tenuous uncertainties danced fuzzily at the periphery of her thoughts. “I am sleeping.”
The words that reached her via the door speaker were not Huma, but she recognized them anyway. She wasn’t quite as fluent in the guttural language of her nocturnal visitor as she was in that of the warrior bipeds or the Hivistahm, but even half-asleep she managed adequately.
“I reiterate: Go away!”
“Please,” the voice pleaded. “It is urgent that I speak with you.”
Considering the racial identity of the unseen speaker, the statement made no sense. Perplexed and by now more awake than asleep, she rose from the night nest and made her way to the door. The built-in scanner confirmed the species of the speaker but did nothing to alleviate her confusion.
The scanner showed an anxious Lepar clad in the shapeless, simple uniform they wore when on duty. Its tail hung motionless on the hallway floor, glistening moistly in the overhead night-lights. A maintenance case dangled from one thick-fingered, half-webbed hand.
“What do you want?”
“Some environmental controls were damaged in the big fighting yesterday. The monitors are just starting to light up. If the problem isn’t fixed quickly, no one in this building will be able to adjust heat or cold or humidity to personal taste. It could get very uncomfortable. I know it is late, but if you will let me in I can fix a bypass in your room that will keep you comfortable while we replace the unit that failed.”
She leaned against the door, uncertain whether to try and wake up or go back to the nest. “There is nothing the matter with conditions in here. Go work on someone else’s room.”
“Please.” On the scanner the Lepar’s expression became more mournful than ever, the flat, wide-mouthed face frozen in a gaze of pitiable imbecility. “I have been ordered to put a bypass in every room. If I do not, then I cannot sign off. I must remain here until everyone has let me in, even if I have to wait until sunrise. It will go on my work record as an incompetence and that means I will not get any sleep and will—”
“Enough! Don’t whine. It is unbecoming to sapience.” Irritably she unsealed the entrance and activated the room’s interior illumination.
The heavyset male amphibian shuffled in, and she let the door close automatically behind it. Without a word it turned to the concealed control panel set in the same wall. Opening the case it carried, her unwelcome visitor began to examine the contents as if searching for a particular tool.
“I am sorry to disturb you so late at night,” he gurgled.
“No matter. I am awake now.” She was unclad and unadorned, but there was no reason to be otherwise in the presence of a Lepar to whom she would resemble nothing more than a large, flightless bird. The sight of her body would engender the same reaction in him as a view of an abstract sculpture.
Her visitor had insisted he wouldn’t be long, but given his initial hesitation and knowing well the Lepar she decided she might as well make use of the time. Retiring to the viewer mounted just above the floor, she folded her legs beneath her and sat down in front of the screen. There were always notes to be organized, material to be reviewed.
She put the Lepar completely out of her mind until the throaty voice said from behind her, “If I might have your attention for a moment?”
“What now?” Grumbling, she turned to look up from the viewer, and promptly received the greatest shock of her life. Which, considering everything she had experienced over the years, was a qualification of some magnitude.
The gun the Lepar held in one slick-skinned, dark green hand was small enough to qualify as toylike. Being far more familiar with such devices than the average Wais, she knew that its size in no way mitigated its potential lethality. Its presence in the hand of a non-Human or non-Massood was astonishing. To see it being wielded by a Lepar simply beggared belief.
Her dumbfounded gaze rose to the expansive face. The broad, toothless mouth was shut, the widely spaced, tiny black eyes glinting in the artificial light. She was too stunned to speak.
“Please do not be alarmed.” The tone was polite and typically deferential. It gestured with the gun. “I can imagine using this only in the most extreme circumstances.”
If he was trying to set her mind at ease, he wasn’t succeeding. “You are Lepar. Your people have been civilized members of the Weave from its beginnings. While not particularly smart, you are no more inclined to violence than is my kind. I do not understand this.” With twitching wingtip she indicated the weapon. “How can you stand there and threaten me with that?”
“It is a considerable emotional stretch, but I am managing. Know that I will make use of it without hesitation if circumstances require.”
Her initial fear was slowly giving way to anger. This was simply too outrageous. “The people here are already trying to cope with one dead Amplitur and two dead Humans. Don’t you think a Wais dead of a gunshot would be a little hard to explain?”
“It probably would be,” the Lepar conceded. “If I am forced to kill you here and now, it is quite possible that my involvement would be discovered. Since that cannot be allowed, after killing you I will have to kill myself. That should be sufficient to put an end to any questions.”
She thought she was beyond shock. She was wrong.
“So you intend to kill me?”
“No one wants to kill you, Honored Scholar Lalelelang. You are a unique and valuable individual. The knowledge you have gathered and distilled concerning how Humankind interacts with the other species of the Weave has proven very useful.”
“Useful,” she echoed. Her lashes jerked. “Surely not to you?”
“We have been accessing your archived material for a long time.” That enigmatic visage seemed perpetually frozen in a skimpy, stupid grin. She reminded herself that the expression was a function of bone physiology, not emotion. “Lepar workers on your homeworld have ready entry to them.”
She thought of the contract Lepar she had noted performing time-consuming, mostly menial tasks around the grounds of the university. The quiet, soft-spoken, obeisant Lepar. Like the rest of her colleagues she’d never given them a second thought. Mentally and emotionally they were suited to such employment, while the Wais and for that matter most other intelligent species were not. The Lepar had always been willing, even eager, to take on such tasks, recognizing their inherent limitations and taking quiet pleasure in carrying out their chosen pursuits to the best of their diffident abilities.
Nothing was making any sense. “What,” she inquired dazedly, “are the Lepar doing accessing my files? What are the Lepar doing accessing any files? My work is complex and nonspecific. It is beyond the capacity of any of your kind to comprehend.”
“Not beyond. Difficult certainly. But there are among us some of greater intelligence than is generally known. It is hard for them, but they are just smart eno
ugh to make sense of such things.”
“This is insane,” Lalelelang muttered aloud in her own sibilant language. “Crazy.”
The translator he wore around his nearly nonexistent neck picked up her words. “The universe is a crazy place. I am told that the physics of it make no sense. Why should those who live within it be any more sensibly organized?”
Realization dawned gradually. There was the very real weapon her visitor held, the absence so far of any other suspect conspirators, and the fact that this creature was, if it could be believed and unbelievable as it seemed, ready to use it against her.
She had understood from the first how the Amplitur and the reactionary General Levaughn had died, but until now the cause of her friend Colonel Straat-ien’s death had been a complete mystery. No Amplitur could overcome a Human in individual combat, nor could a single representative of any other species. Not even a Chirinaldo or Molitar. But Human fighters could sometimes be defeated by other, less obvious methods.
Complete surprise, for example.
“You were there,” she said accusingly.
She recognized the simple, straightforward gesture, equally comprehensible above or below the water, that acknowledged her accusation. “I was there.” It was conclusive that he did not ask to where she was referring.
“How did it happen? Can you tell me that much?” She did not add that it was gradually dawning on her that she probably had no future beyond the termination of the current conversation. Resistance was out of the question. In addition to everything else she was too numbed by the incredible reality of the situation.
It occurred to her that this might be an isolated condition, that the Lepar confronting her might really be clinically psychotic. As an unavoidable corollary to intelligence, insanity was found among every member of the Weave. Were the Lepar prone to it? She didn’t know, having concentrated on Humankind to the exclusion of all else.
“It was … unpleasant,” the Lepar told her unemotionally. “At the time of the confrontation I was attending to the Amplitur’s quarters. You may know that our taste in environments is somewhat similar, so that I was at ease while carrying out my work.
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