“Bathroom?” Moul echoed, and the conversation shifted easily from the aesthetics of architecture and plans for nocturnal excursions to another tack altogether.
Weeks passed. The adults were delighted at the children’s progress, much of which originated with the experimental subjects themselves.
“Want to play Cowboys and Indians?” Matthew asked his friend. It was raining hard outside the Interaction Room. There could be no thought of venturing outside, even by oneself.
“I don’t know,” Moul said curiously. “What’s ‘Cowboys and Indians?’”
“Well, once upon a time on Earth there was a noble, intelligent, handsome, and just generally sort of neat people called Indians.” Matthew enjoyed being the one to explain for a change. He didn’t for a moment doubt that Moul was smarter than he was, but somehow the usual resentment he felt toward smarter kids didn’t apply to the larva. After all, Moul had received a lot more education and was perhaps a Terran year older than he.
“Anyway, their lands were invaded one day by a bunch of people called the Cowboys. The Cowboys were real nasty. They burned and slaughtered and stole and lied and all kinds of bad things until finally there were only a few Indians left. Eventually, though, the Indians got even because times changed and the life force that kept the Cowboys going faded away from their economy and they all died out. But the Indians kept their traditions and beliefs and lived happily ever after in the end.”
“That doesn’t sound like a very nice story,” murmured Moul doubtfully, “despite the happy ending. I’m not sure I want to play … but if you really want to …”
“Yeah, sure.” Matthew climbed to his feet.
Moul rippled back from the human. “It sounds awfully violent, Matthew. I don’t like violent games.”
“It won’t be bad,” the boy assured him. “Now, I’m going to be the Indians and you can be the Cowboys.”
Moul considered. “I think I’d prefer to be the Indians.”
“No. I suggested the game,” Matthew was a mite belligerent, “and I’m going to be the Indians.”
“All right. You can be the Indians.”
Matthew frowned at him. “What do you mean, I can be the Indians? Just like that?”
“Well, of course. Why not?”
“But you said you wanted to be the Indians.”
“I do,” Moul admitted, “but you obviously want to be them more than I do. Therefore, it is only sensible to let you be the Indians.”
Matthew mulled over this development, which tumbled around in his brain like a rough gem in a polishing unit. “No,” he finally decided, “you can be the Indians.”
“No, no. I understand thoroughly your desire, Mattheeew. You can be the Indians. I’ll be the Cowboys.”
“I’ve got an idea,” the boy said suddenly. “Why don’t we both of us be the Indians?”
“Then who’ll be the Cowboys?”
Matthew turned and called across the room. “Hey Janie, Ahling, Chuck, Yerl!”
They entered into involved negotiations, but it developed that no one really wanted to be the Cowboys. They all wanted to be Indians.
In the observation booth behind the one-way, Dr. Jahan Bhadravati turned to his companions, who at that moment included Bonnie, Captain Sanchez of the Seeker, and a leading representative of Earth’s government. Handshakes were exchanged all around, but the children in the room beyond would have found the adults’ enthusiasm at a display of the commonplace very puzzling.
XVI
Bonnie was chatting with Ryo as they strolled from the shuttle toward the laboratory complex when the first rising thunder reached the camp from overhead. It arose in the north and grew steadily louder until a pair of quadruple-winged ships roared by, rattling the trees fringing the glade and scaring hell out of the arboreals.
The two walkers pressed themselves back beneath a canopy of chamelocloth. So did the other humans who’d been out in the comparative cool of early morning.
After a decent wait Bonnie leaned out to squint toward the southwest. “Think they saw us?”
“I don’t know,” said one of the shuttle’s crew from beneath the overhanging limbs of a nearby tree. He too was staring worriedly southward. “They were awfully low and moving damn fast.” He emerged from concealment. “I’d better get to my station, just in case.”
Bonnie was about to join him when she felt restraining pressure on her arm.
“I do not think we were observed,” Ryo told her. “You see, I am almost positive they were not looking for us.”
“Then what were they doing out here, at that altitude?” She noticed his oddly rigid posture. “Is something else wrong?”
“Very wrong.” Memories rose up, threatened to submerge all other thoughts. Fear and anger mixed inside him. “Those weren’t Thranx ships. Those were AAnn warshuttles. I know, because I’ve seen them before.”
“We’ve got to help.” Sanchez glared around at the hastily assembled conference. They were in the shuttle’s cargo hold, which had been converted to a conference chamber, among other things.
“It’s not our business to get involved in local squabbles,” the military attaché reminded them perfunctorily. “We’re here uninvited. Our presence constitutes a dangerous provocation to the Thranx government. There is also the Project to consider. We could not assist the local colonists without revealing our presence, and that in turn would surely spell an end to our highly promising experiments here.” He gazed coolly down toward Ryo.
“Personal feelings must not be allowed to divert us from our principal reason for being here. We have no formal relations with the Thranx. The same is true for the AAnn. I have no basis for initiating hostilities against a neutral and uncontacted alien race.”
“You’ll pardon me if I disagree with that.” Sanchez gave him a wan smile. “I’ve established to my satisfaction that it was the AAnn who, deliberately and unprovoked, attacked the Seeker. I had many killed and several wounded. I’d call that ample provocation for, at the minimum, an instructive reprisal.”
“The attack on your ship could have arisen from misunderstanding,” the attaché argued. He didn’t enjoy the position he was forced to take, but he defended it admirably. “We could be jeopardizing any future relationships with the AAnn race.”
“Your pardon, sir.” One of the xenologists at the far end of the room raised a timorous hand. “If these AAnn conform to the psychosocial pattern diagrammed by my programming, then we stand the best chance of making a peace with them by showing a willingness to fight.”
“That’s crazy,” the attaché snapped.
“An apt AAnn adjective,” said Ryo, whose knowledge of Terranglo speech had progressed to an appreciation of alliteration.
“Their profile fits, however,” the quiet specialist said with some conviction.
The attaché, outgunned, withdrew into silence.
“You must, of course, make your own decision based on the knowledge you have and your own customs,” Ryo said gently. “I am under no such restraints. I must take my harvester and render whatever assistance I can, regardless of personal risk. Besides, there is little you could accomplish. For one thing, you have no satisfactory ground transportation. For another, you do not have—”
“I’m afraid that we do, Ryo,” Sanchez informed him. The Thranx made an instinctive gesture of fourth-degree astonishment.
“I know this was designed to be a wholly peaceful mission,” she continued, “and it should remain so with regard to human-Thranx relations. But considering our former imprisonment, surely you can understand that we wouldn’t set down on a Thranx planet unarmed.”
“No.” Ryo tried to conceal his considerable upset. “I do not understand that.”
The captain shrugged. “I’m sorry. Regardless, it remains that we have weapons.” She gazed around the room. “I propose that we use them to demonstrate our mental constitution to the AAnn, and to aid our newfound friends. Informally, it would seem.” She focused her att
ention on the attaché. “Of course, I cannot give the order to release weaponry for use here.”
The attaché drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “I still haven’t heard a strong enough reason. It’s insane to take up arms against one race on behalf of another that we have no relations with.”
“The whole experiment sounded insane when Ryo first proposed it,” Bonnie reminded him. “There’s something else you haven’t thought of. None of you.” Her gaze included Sanchez. “What of the larvae we’ve borrowed from the Paszex Nursery? Their parents and clanmates are all back there. If they’re killed we’ll have relations of a different sort to deal with, far more complicated relations.
“Also, by assisting the locals we have a chance to insinuate ourselves into their good graces. That would greatly aid the Project.” She looked hard at the attaché. “Not hinder or finish it, as you claim. I feel it’s time to take the next step, according to the Project programming. We can’t stay hidden here forever.”
“A most succinct summation.” Bhadravati smiled pleasantly at the attaché. “I should very much like to have a gun, please. In the interest of furthering the Project.” This sentiment was echoed strongly by most of the others in the chamber.
Ryo’s feelings were confused. It was marvelous finally to have committed the humans against the AAnn. He would rather have accomplished it under different circumstances, in a different place, but the web of existence had dictated it be in Paszex. He would cope.
At the same time, the presence of weapons on board the shuttle was a discomfiting revelation. Not one had see fit to come forward to tell him about it. Perhaps, he mused, because my reaction was anticipated.
In spite of the successes and accomplishments of the past months, had Wuu in the final analysis been right all along? Were these strange bipeds he had befriended really incurably warlike and violent? Or was the presence of arms here merely an understandable human reaction and precaution?
Dissection of philosophies would have to wait. All that mattered now was getting to Paszex as rapidly as possible. The harvester could rush there faster than the humans’ shuttle, which had been made a part of the landscape.
Of course, the AAnn ships might not be heading for Paszex. That would spare him a lot of trouble.
Perhaps three dozen armed humans were ready and it was impossible to fit them all inside the harvester. The excess sat on top, clung to the sides. Ryo thoughtfully set the interior thermostat at near freezing, which his passengers found delightfully refreshing.
How long ago had he rumbled through the jungle in a survey crawler on a similar mission, to try and disrupt an AAnn attack on his home? Surely, if the AAnn were intent on Paszex again they would remember and post guards around their shuttles. But they would be expecting only a possible charge by agricultural machinery, not a heavily armed force of aliens.
The military attaché was present with his several associates. As trained soldiers, they easily and immediately assumed command. Ryo noticed how alert they appeared, how intense in posture and speech. That worried him as much as the presence of weapons had.
He’d observed humans in a warlike state months ago, when Bonnie and the lamented Loo had escaped from their military prison on northern Hivehom. That he could understand. Then they’d been motivated by fear. He wasn’t sure what was motivating the humans now.
With the humans on top and sides hanging on tightly, Ryo gently put the versatile harvester on lift. There was no point in trying to hug the earth now, and they didn’t have days in which to slog through the jungle. On full hover he set the craft for Paszex.
They set down into the trees at a sufficient distance to keep them off AAnn detection equipment. It took as long to negotiate the final short stretch of jungle separating them from the hive fields as it had to hover all the way from the glade.
The invaders had set down in a different orchard. As in the previous nightmare, smoke was rising from ruined ventilators and intakes. For some perverse reason the AAnn seemed to have selected Paszex as a test hive for their inimical soirées. Ryo had no idea how many small, isolated hives on Willow-wane and other colony worlds had suffered similar repeated attacks, but it was obvious that an alliance with the humans was more necessary than his own government was willing to admit.
Distant explosions sounded from the direction of the hive. “We will approach stealthily at first,” Ryo was telling the military attaché, “and try to slip close to them. I found that if you threaten their shuttles’ engines they will—”
But the attaché was already making loud mouth noises which even the knowledgeable Ryo could not interpret. Then the humans fell like lice from the sides and rear of the harvester, and were running remarkably mobile zigzag patterns through the field of shoulder-high weoneon and asfi.
It’s doubtful that their numbers would have overawed the well-trained AAnn soldiery. On the other hand, the sight of several dozen alien creatures waving alien devices as they charged from supposedly empty jungle shrieking at the tops of their lungs and generally comporting themselves like dangerous mental defectives would be enough to unsettle the most self-possessed warrior of any race.
The AAnn guards fired wildly and often blindly while the humans picked their shots with surprising accuracy. Bonnie, Captain Sanchez, Dr. Bhadravati, and all those whom Ryo had come to think of as peaceful, gentle scholars were blasting away with an enthusiasm that made Ryo feel very sad for them. He was no longer frightened of the possibilities they presented. Fear had become pity.
They need us, these poor bipeds, he told himself. He watched as an energy bolt seared the wingtip of one shuttlecraft. They need us far more than we need them. They are the ones who should be crying for alliance.
The earth erupted and he ducked below the harvester’s roof for protection. A shot had struck something more than volatile within the body of the farther AAnn ship. It disintegrated in a storm of flaming plastic and flying metal shards. The explosion knocked the other shuttle over on its side, crumpling landing gear and one of the four wings.
Several of the humans had been shot, but the damage had been done. The startled AAnn who had not perished grouped themselves into a surrender formation, threw down their weapons, and linked arms in a gesture of defiant submission. They glared through slit pupils at the peculiar beings surrounding them.
Ryo watched and wondered what the commander of the AAnn base ship orbiting somewhere above must be thinking. He did not know if the AAnn suffered from panic. Other AAnn were staggering from the intact shuttlecraft. Those returning hastily from the underground corridors of Paszex took note of the submission ceremony their fellows were performing and joined in.
It was not until evening that it dawned on the invaders how greatly they outnumbered their captors. By then it was too late to organize any resistance. Besides, they had performed the submission ceremony. Regardless of their anger, they had committed themselves. So they contented themselves with much internal grumbling, intense study of the alien victors, and disparaging comments about their officers, who’d mistaken strangeness for superiority.
By then the inhabitants of the stricken community had begun to emerge. The local Servitors were joined by ordinary citizens who’d armed themselves with utensils and manufacturing implements. The captured AAnn regarded them with unconcealed disdain, their tails twitching listlessly as they shuffled about under the watchful gaze of the humans. Meanwhile the hivefolk kept their distance, their curiosity focused more on their fearful saviors than on the belligerent AAnn.
Eventually someone noticed Ryo standing among and conversing with the bipeds. He reluctantly made his way to the strangely garbed Thranx, striving to get no nearer the monstrous aliens than was absolutely necessary.
“I am Kerarilzex,” the Elder announced. His antennae were withered, but not his voice. “I am Six on the Hive Council of Eight. We would give our thanks to these peculiar visitors”—he’d been about to use the Thranx word for monster and at the last minute thought b
etter of it—“but I would not know how to do so. It appears you can converse with them.” Then he made a slow gesture of third-degree uncertainty coupled with one of rising amazement. “I believe—I believe I may know you, youngster. Can it be that you are of the Zex?”
“I am called Ryozenzuzex, Elder.”
“The young agricultural expert who vanished so long ago. Truly do I remember you!” He paused, thinking furiously. “Word came to us all the way from Ciccikalk that you had become something of a dangerous renegade.”
“Something of that, yes. I am a renegade from and danger to the blind, the callous, and the reactionary. No one else has anything to fear from me.” Now that the AAnn had been neutralized, other problems—in their own fashion more serious—were beginning to resurface.
“Rest deep and warm, Elder. Neither I nor my friends,” and he indicated the monsters, “are any threat to the hive. The contrary is true. All will be explained.” I hope, he add silently. “All that matters is what I have accomplished in my absence.”
Bonnie had walked over to stand next to him. She was gazing with interest at the Elder, who found the attention very upsetting.
“Who are these … creatures, and how have you come to be among them?” he asked.
“It’s a long story,” Bonnie said via the appropriate whistles and clicks.
The Elder was flabbergasted. Reflexively, he threw back a stream of questions.
“I don’t understand,” she told him patiently. “You’ll have to speak more slowly. I’m not very fluent yet.”
Ryo translated the rough places for both of them. The Elder’s active mind was homing in on another unsettling thought.
“We thank you for our hive’s salvation. I think we will be safe from AAnn depredations from now on. Would you by any chance know what happened to six children who were taken from the Nursery several months ago? Their Nurse vanished with them. A heinous crime.”
“And a necessary one, I’m afraid.” Ryo was past caring what local Elders thought. Having broken so many important laws in a comparatively brief span he had no compunction at mentioning yet another perfidy.
Nor Crystal Tears Page 24
