“I can’t see one.” The Secretary was not encouraging. “We would have to demonstrate beyond a doubt that our two species could live side by side in harmony and understanding despite thousands of years of mutual conditioning to the contrary.
“The best I can realistically offer is a chance to open tentative communications via Deep Space transmissions. Even then I’ll have to combat the bigots and paranoids in my own department. But if we exercise caution, with luck and some social maturation we might during the next couple of hundred years—”
“Apologies for interruption, sir.” Ryo cut him off sharply. “The AAnn will not wait a couple of hundred years. They will extend their mischief-making to include your people. They know just how far they can push, how deeply they can wound. They will try to bleed you to death. When you are weak enough, they will attack. Each day they grow more powerful, more confident. For the sake of both our species we must strike an alliance now. That cannot be done through cautious, long-range transmissions.”
A successful politician knows when to be tactful and when to be truthful. The Secretary was very successful.
“Unfortunately, the facts exist. We cannot alter our shape any more than you can alter yours. I can see no quick way to prove species compatibility.”
“I have given much thought to the problem,” Ryo replied. “I had hoped not to have to make the proposal I will now lay before you all. It is a bit—well, theatrical. My friend Wuuzelansem would approve the form if not the content. It is all I can think of, however. It will settle the question of compatibility permanently, I should think.
“If the operation becomes known, it will be condemned with many expressions of outrage and horror by both our peoples. I fully expect all of you,” and he gestured around the room, “to react in similar fashion as I explain. I entreat you to let me finish, and to consider what I say calmly and reasoningly. I ask you to put instinctive passions aside while considering the larger issues we are dealing with here. With success will come admiration and vindication. Failure would mean dishonor and much worse for all involved.”
“I don’t like choices that offer only extremes. I prefer to remain in the middle,” the Secretary murmured.
“There is no middle here, sir. Are you not risk-takers? Do you humans not like to dance with the laws of chance?”
“We’ve been known to do so now and then,” one of the other government officials commented drily.
“Then I shall detail my thoughts. I request only that you do not reject until I have finished.” At least, he thought, I have gained their full attention. Having acquired considerable wisdom during the past years, however, he was not sanguine about the chances for acceptance.
“Now then,” he began briskly, “if I have studied your customs efficiently I believe I am not wrong in saying that you look unfavorably upon kidnapping and infanticide …”
The world that hove into view on the screen was so achingly familiar that Ryo found himself shaking.
“Are you all right, Ryo?” Bonnie stared back at him from her seat.
“I am. It’s only that I hadn’t expected so powerful a reaction.” As he stared the misty white-green globe swelled to fill the entire screen. They were diving at it very fast, as was planned. “I thought myself sufficiently detached, removed to a point where such mundane instincts would not affect me. That is clearly not the case. I feel rather numbed.”
“I understand.” She watched him sympathetically. “We are subject to the same emotions. We call it homesickness.” She lifted her gaze to the small screen. They were in Ryo’s quarters on board the heavily screened Seeker. She wiped the ever-present sweat from her forehead. She’d been sitting with him for over an hour now and her clothing was soaked. “It’s a beautiful world, your Willow-wane. Your home.”
“Yes. Most of the settlement is on the opposite hemisphere.”
“Don’t worry, Elvira knows what to do. She’ll hold this dive and veer back to Space Plus range at the first sign of a probe. Though if what you say is true, that’s unlikely to happen.”
“I think we will be all right. The additional screening equipment your people installed should give us the electronic appearance of a tiny meteor temporarily drawn into low orbit. Inside five pd’s of Hivehom or Warm Nursery we would soon be detected, but there are many dead zones above Willow-wane. I believe the Seeker will be able to orbit undetected long enough to allow us to ferry our material to the surface.”
The door admit chimed and Ryo called, “Enter, please.” It slid aside and a gust of cold air from the corridor beyond momentarily chilled him. Bonnie moved her arms gratefully in the brief breeze.
A small human walked into the room. Ryo studied it with his usual fascination. Humans knew no larval stage, did not experience the terror and wonder and glory of metamorphosis. Like many mammals, they were bom into the shape they would have for their whole life.
They did not have the benefit of an extended learning period in which to rest and absorb knowledge. Instead they were thrust immediately into a highly competitive adult environment. Though no psychtech, Ryo believed this unhappy arrangement had much to do with the species’ paranoia and belligerence.
The larva—no, he corrected himself, the male child—was named Matthew. He stopped next to Bonnie, lifted his hand instinctively. She took it in her own.
“Is that where we’re going, Ms. Thorpe?” Ryo noted that though he held his other hand in his mouth he was not using his mandibles to clean the fingers. The habit, he’d been told, had a psychological rather than practical purpose.
“Yes, that’s where we’re going, Matthew. Isn’t it pretty?” She bent over to put her face at his level. Both regarded the viewscreen.
“It looks kinda like home,” he said.
“Most inhabitable planets look alike.”
“What’s ‘inhabitibitible’ mean?”
“Inhabitable,” she corrected him. “It means we can usually live there.”
“It looks like a lime sundae. How long will we be there?”
“Not so very long.”
Matthew thought a moment, squinted at the screen. “When will I see Mommy and Daddy again?”
Bonnie hesitated, then smiled maternally. “After school is finished. They know you’re away, you know.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Do you like this school so far?”
“Oh, yeah!” Sudden excitement suffused his face. “There’s lots of neat things to do and tapes to study and neat food and friends! I like it a lot better than my old school. And it’s on a starship, too.” He screwed his face into a thoughtful frown. “Too many girls, though.”
Bonnie smiled.
“But it’s lots of fun. I never thought school could be so much fun. I’d like to go outside, though. ’Course, I know I can’t do that in space, and I don’t have a envirosuit.”
“We’ll be landing real soon now,” she informed him, “and you’ll be able to play outside. You’ll have new lessons to learn.”
“Oh, that’s okay. I don’t mind studying. I like school.”
“I know you do, Matthew.” She reached out, rumpled his brown curls. “That’s one reason why you were chosen to come on the ship for this special term.”
“Yeah. It’s sure fun.” He studied the lime sundae a while longer. Then his attention shifted to the figure sprawled on its right side on the high bed. He still held onto Bonnie’s hand but his other fingers were no longer in his mouth. That was a baby habit, he knew, and he wasn’t a baby anymore. He was determined to stop it.
“Hi, Ryo.”
“Hello, Matthew.”
“Will you wordwhistle for me again?”
“Anytime,” and he made the Thranx word for happy.
Matthew’s brows drew together. His face twisted and his mandibles pursed tight. At first nothing happened when he blew through them. The second time a soft whistling emerged. He smiled. “How’s that?”
“Very good, but it needs to be higher at the en
d. That’s the whistleword for happy.”
“I know that. You think I’m stupid or somethin’?” He tried again. The sound floated through the room, louder this time.
“That’s better. Much better. Want to try the word for sun-up-morning?”
“Naw, not now.” He looked up at Bonnie, then back to the figure on the bed. It was a funny bed, he thought, but then Ryo was funny-shaped, so he supposed it matched up okay.
“Want to play horsey?”
“Sure.” Ryo slid off the lounge. Horsey was a young-human game, in which one partner assumed the part of a domesticated animal. It was all part of a much greater and far more dangerous game.
He immediately lowered himself to the floor so the boy could climb aboard. It embarrassed him whenever one of the children asked to play the horse.
XV
It doesn’t matter who or what you are, Ryo mused. Wherever home is, there is something about its smell that distinguishes it from any other world.
He inhaled deeply, his thorax expanding with a rush as he gazed around the little clearing. Off to his left, muldringia vine grew thick and close until the unscreened sunlight turned them pale and weak at the clearing’s edge. Tall grass wore a corona of bright little yellow flowers. Snuff bugs whizzed through the morning air. His antennae waved through the pollen recently dispersed by an overripe bom-bush. The heady aroma threatened to upset his balance on the ramp.
“My home.” He turned to the open lock and those standing there. “Is it not wonderful?”
Liquid was already materializing on Bonnie’s exposed skin. Bhadravati and several other friends crowded around her, testing the air.
“Very lush,” Bhadravati agreed. “But to us, very hot and terribly humid.”
“A mild second-season day,” Ryo noted. “I doubt the humidity is much more than 80 percent. With luck it will top a comfortable 90 by midday eve.”
“With luck,” Elvira Sanchez muttered gloomily as she leaned through the lock and gazed across the treetops. Her concern was for what might appear from the clouds.
“If we had been detected on approach,” a voice said from inside the ship, “search craft would be overflying this area by now.”
“I know. I’m just a natural worrier,” the captain called over a shoulder. Hands on hips, she turned to look past Ryo. “A good place to lose weight, anyway.”
Ryo made a gesture of puzzlement. “Why would you want to lose weight—and how?”
“Cosmetic reasons,” she replied. “When we move around in very hot weather, our bodies sweat water and we can lose weight.”
“Extraordinary.” Ryo shook his head to indicate amazement, a gesture he had picked up from the human physical vocabulary. “Being constrained by our exoskeletons we are considerably less flexible in such matters.”
“A world without obesity,” Bonnie murmured. “That would be enough to induce some humans to visit here.”
“But not enough of them.” Bhadravati squinted into the heat. “Hence our illegal visit.”
Highly illegal. The Secretary had provided covert assistance and laundered funds, but had made it quite clear that if the project was discovered he would denounce it as vociferously as anyone else in the government. Only tremendous pressure from members of the scientific community, incited by Rijseen and Bhadravati, had enabled the expedition to literally get off the ground at all.
Clattering and shouts sounded from below the ramp, where humans and their machines were wrestling with the contents of the shuttle’s hold.
“We should have the first portion of the shelter set up by the time you return,” Bonnie told Ryo. “Of course, if you’re not back within the prescribed time period—”
“I know. You’ll disappear, leaving me with quite a lot of explaining to do. Assuming I am given time to explain.”
“I thought you said your people were highly civilized about such matters.”
“Fear of the unknown, while exaggerated among Homo sapiens, is not completely unknown among the Thranx,” he responded. “It is such attitudes we are battling to overcome.”
“I hope you’re back in time.” She reached out to touch one of his antennae. “Don’t get yourself blown apart. You’re important. It’s not the Thranx we’re friends with, yet. It’s you.”
“I will endeavor most strenuously to preserve myself,” he assured her as he started down the ramp. Bonnie and the others followed to the bottom. There they turned to aid in the unloading and setting up.
Peering up at the shuttle he could see numerous faces pressed against the glass of the tiny ports. Some of the faces were smaller and less well defined than others. Soon, Matthew, he thought at the faces. Soon you’ll be able to come out and play. Soon I hope to have a new game for you and your friends.
Moving through the jungle on foot was slow and awkward, even though he remembered the area reasonably well. That was one of the principal reasons it had been selected. And he had made his way through far wilder and more hostile flora. Oh, so long ago!
Days passed. Anxiously he kept watch on the frond-shrouded sky for signs of search craft. After a half-month had passed he was finally convinced the shuttle had set down unnoticed.
Before much more time passed, Ryo found himself standing among the first row of tettoq trees. Across the orchard to his left should be the machine shop where broken field equipment was repaired. He’d emerged from the jungle slightly to the south of the Inmot holdings, but he still recognized the landscape. The jungle had not been pushed back that far since his hurried departure so long ago.
It was very hard to remain concealed in the trees at the jungle’s edge. He wanted more than anything to skitter shouting and yelling down the nearest entryway, but that was not to be, not this night and not for some time, if ever again.
He waited until sleeptime was well along and the stars were high up behind the cloud cover before leaving the shelter of the jungle. Somehow, as he made his cautious way through the carefully cultivated vegetation, he expected things to be more different then they were. In actuality he hadn’t been away that long. Mentally, he’d been absent for years.
There were no patrols to avoid, since there was nothing to patrol against. Twice he encountered premates or curious youngsters out for a nocturnal stroll. No one recognized him. That was fortunate, because only total darkness would have been sufficient to hide his movements completely.
It would be simpler if they were humans, he thought as he increased his pace after successfully slipping past the most recent pair. Humans were practically blind in weak light. They really are an amazing species, he mused. Consider what they have accomplished with poor vision, poor hearing, a weak sense of smell, no faz ability at all, and half the sensible number of limbs. Not to mention the burden of wearing their skeletons inside out. Quite remarkable.
He knew that a great deal was riding on his little nighttime stroll. He hurried on a little faster.
The machine shop had not been moved. No one was guarding the tools or heavy equipment parked outside. Theft was not unknown in the larger hives, but bulky material was quite safe in a community the size of Paszex because there was no place to steal it to.
Such trust did not extend to leaving the ignition controls activated, however. Foolishness was present among the irreverent in Paszex in proportion to the population. Ryo had a busy half-hour jimmying the controls of one harvester so it could be started with ease.
The machine was used to transport bulk loads from fields to processing chutes. With the familiarity of long practice he started the engine. The harvester slid smoothly forward on triple rows of balloon wheels.
There was an awkward moment when he parked the harvester outside the particular entryway he intended to use, for some night stroller might think to question the presence of the big machine so far from any agricultural station. No one appeared, however.
After altering the internal temperature of the harvester’s cargo bay to suit his intentions he slid from the control cab and ent
ered the hive. Nothing unfamiliar assaulted his senses. Yet he didn’t feel quite as at home as he’d thought he would. Nothing was different, nothing had been changed. He’d spent most of his life in the very corridors he was now walking. Yet there was a difference, and he feared it was permanent.
Most of the citizenry were asleep, but some were still hard at work. The regular maintenance crews, for example, were preparing the corridors for the next workday. He had to exercise a little care.
He descended several levels, turned at a familiar corner, then into his destination. Workers were busier here than just about anywhere else in Paszex. That was no surprise. He knew it would be so, but he could not avoid it.
“Good evening, sir,” the monitor said.
“Good evening.”
“It’s very late, sir.”
“I know, but I had difficulty sleeping and thought I would admire our new cagin.” Thranx did not have nieces and nephews. A new birth was relative to all in his clan. The relationship was sufficiently general that Ryo believed he could gain admittance merely by claiming it. Every clan had a new cagin or two in the Nursery.
The monitor did not question him. “Very well, but be quiet. They are all sleeping soundly.”
“I know. I will be.”
He entered the Nursery proper. The long rows of curved study saddles lay in two orderly rows against the glazed walls. Partitions formed individual cubicles. About three-fourths of the saddles were occupied by larvae in various stages of maturation.
How many years ago had he lain in one such saddle? he thought. Immobile, thirsting for knowledge and food, whiling away the days in idle study with his Nurserymates while anticipating metamorphosis.
Now he was in the Nursery again, with a different purpose. A glance from the doorway showed only three Nurses present. Even that seemed cause for concern. They moved busily about their tasks.
None of them disturbed him or thought to question his presence as he made his way casually down the central aisle. The saddle designs had not been altered in his lifetime. All were portable, each equipped with a tiny motor enabling it to be easily moved should an occupant require a shift to surgery or another department.
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