The visitors spent several anxious moments hovering over the device until it was clear that it would. The message was sent. The village's friends in Tavumacia readily agreed to pass it along. In return, they were told of the Sakuntala uprising.
Then there was nothing to do but wait.
“How long do you think it will take, good sir?”
“What, for us to be extracted from this Sakuntala landfill?” Following a (by Sakuntala village standards) decent meal, Hasa's habitual ire had returned full force. But then, Masurathoo reflected, it had never really left. “Lemme think. Message has to get to Taulau. Once there, it has to be passed to the proper department. Someone has to decide it's legitimate and validate a report. Then the lazy bastards have to organize a rescue. At least they've got the coordinates of the communicator here.”
Swinging slowly back and forth in the suspension chair of their host's home, he pondered the motionless debris-stained water of the Viisiiviisii shimmering a few meters below the carefully constructed porch. Here no advanced charged fields protected them from anything inimical that might be waiting just beneath the surface. No automatic weaponry rested ready and armed to blast whatever might emerge. They didn't care. For the first time in many days, the three of them reposed with full bellies, if not satisfied palates. Masurathoo in particular had had a difficult time keeping down the simple village food.
“Couple of days at most,” Hasa continued. “Even if they wanted to, educated and enterprising village Sakuntala couldn't fake the kind of electronic identification I'm carrying on me. Administration will send someone.” He favored his companions with a knowing smirk. “They don't have any choice. I'm a Commonwealth citizen.”
A fact that does not speak well for the Commonwealth, Jemunu-jah thought to himself. Fortunately, the existence of appalling individuals like Shadrach Hasselemoga was offset by the genuineness of persons such as the administrator Lauren Matthias. Jemunu-jah found that he was looking forward to filing an official report of their misfortune and subsequent survival, if only so that she might read it.
Gazing out through the rain from the porch of their host's home, Hasa regarded the unassuming ramshackle houses of the villagers with disdain. “Could've hoped for rescue from a village with something more going for it than this dump.”
The fact that Jemunu-jah agreed with Hasa's assessment did not lessen the force of the associated insult. He would have objected, but the human was still talking.
“Okay; we're alive and likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future. As soon as the twits up in Taulau can manage to extricate their brains from their pants, they'll send a rescue skimmer down here to pick us up.”
A perfectly horrible thought sprang unbidden into Masurathoo's ever-wary Deyzara mind. “What if it is sabotaged by the same individual or individuals who incapacitated our craft?”
Hasa was curt but reassuring. “We've explained what happened to us. Unless whoever's responsible for sending out the rescue crew is utterly barren of intelligence, they'll triple check everything before taking off. I think it'll be okay.” Leaning back in the suspension chair, he sucked on something brown, round, and full of sweet syrup. “I wouldn't want to be rescued by anyone stupid enough to let what happened to us happen to them.”
The human's confidence bolstered Masurathoo's depleted spirits. The Deyzara had decided that Hasa was worth saving after all—just barely.
“Couple of days,” Hasa repeated. The rain had intensified. If it started to come down any harder, he mused, they would have to move inside. He didn't want to do that. Like any traditional Sakuntala dwelling, that of their kindly host stank to high heaven. “That gives us time to sort a few things out.”
Nearby, Jemunu-jah lolled in comparative contentment in his own chair, idly watching the rain. Amazing how soothing it was; in its sound, its smell, its constancy. He never would understand why it made humans so irritable.
“What things? We have already agreed on a common report.”
Having drained the boku of the last of its sugary contents, Hasa let it slip from his fingers. It landed on the otherwise clean deck. Jemunu-jah eyed the human disapprovingly. The least the disagreeable one could have done was throw it over the side, into the water. It would not have taken much of an effort. But then, a lack of concern for others was one of their human companion's most notable characteristics.
Hasa half closed his eyes, blissfully indifferent to the affront he had just delivered to their absent host. “On a report about what happened to us, yeah. We also have to decide what to say, or what not to say, about what we've discovered. Specifically, the pannula.” His gaze shifted from Sakuntala to Deyzara and back again. “Are you going to agree with me that it's an intelligent organism? Or are you going to continue to reference it as a purely reactive ‘forest spirit,' or just a dumb hunk of fungus?” Rising from the suspension seat, whose swinging he did not still, as would have been proper, he headed for the doorway into the main house.
“I'm gonna take a walk. The rain's not bad, and I'd like to see the rest of the village before we're lifted out of here.”
Masurathoo fixed him with both bulging eyes. “Hoping to chance upon some useful undescribed plant or animal the knowledge of which you can steal from the locals?”
As Hasa looked back from the portal, it was clear that he had entirely missed the point of the Deyzara's sarcasm. “Well, of course. That's what I'm doing here. I'm not proud. I've got no problem with letting some dumb native do the dirty work for me.”
As he watched their companion depart, Jemunu-jah bristled at the human's offhandedly offensive manner. “We save each other's lives, but I do not like Hasa. He is poor representative of his species.”
Masurathoo was slightly more understanding. “If nothing else, I have to say that I find his xenophobia remarkably consistent. You should not feel singled out, my tall friend. Bear in mind that he hates his own kind as well.”
“Heesa, that is so.” Jemunu-jah regarded the shorter Deyzara. “What he said has merit, however. How are we to describe pannula in our official statement?”
Masurathoo gazed out into the forest. Below, something long and green made a half-hidden leap, leaving behind rain-dappled ripples on the surface of the water. It came nowhere near reaching the floor of the porch. “Do you think it is sentient?”
Jemunu-jah pondered the question. “The human is convinced. I am not. My people have always been aware of certain presences in the forest. There no stories of any pannula consciously trying to help them.”
“Maybe they did not need help,” the Deyzara pointed out. “Or maybe the timing wasn't right, or the moment of contact. Or perhaps, being so familiar with your kind, the pannula was not interested. It might have taken the arrival of an entirely new species, like Hasa's, combined with just the right circumstances, like our helplessness and isolation, to induce it to make itself known.”
Jemunu-jah was still not convinced. “The Sakuntala eat fungi. We do not talk to them.”
“That may have to change.” Rising from his seat, whose motion he carefully stilled so as not to offend any watching Sakuntala, Masurathoo walked to the open edge of the porch. Alive with haunting sounds, masked by rain and mist, the southern Viisiiviisii emerged from the waters of ten thousand conjoined rivers.
“Do you not realize what it means if the human is right about the pannula? It would completely change the sociopolitical dynamic on Fluva.”
Jemunu-jah struggled hard to comprehend. “I not sure I understand.”
Carefully stepping away from the edge, the Deyzara turned to regard his fur-covered fellow traveler. “Allow me to point out that Commonwealth classification of this world is based on the presence of one indigenous intelligent species and one imported one. The way the Commonwealth government treats Fluva is based on that classification. The situation here is already atypical in that the resident sentient population is almost evenly divided between two different species. If a third is added into the mix, the
situation becomes unique.”
Jemunu-jah frowned. “I do not see how it changes anything.”
“Some of it will be good. The Commonwealth will pay more attention to Fluva. That means more aid credits and a greater voice within the galactic government. But consider this: Where sentience is concerned, Commonwealth and Church policies are designed to safeguard the most primitive.”
“Are you saying that the Commonwealth will work to help the pannula before it will the Sakuntala?”
Masurathoo was gesturing with both trunks. “Or the Deyzara. That is the way of things. The government will be especially interested in the pannula because it represents the first evidence of intelligence in a life-form of its kind, although I understand that there are rumors of something similar on another world. They are only rumors, though. The pannula is real.” Sorrowfully he eyed the remnant shards of his once striking garments.
“At least one good thing will come of it. If the Commonwealth Authority accepts the human's interpretation of the pannula's actions, it will gain leave to intervene in the uprising promulgated by the extremists among your people. The Authority will be able to use the excuse that it is interceding to protect the interests of the least advanced of Fluva's three resident sentient species.”
Jemunu-jah gaped at the Deyzara. “The Authority would shoot Sakuntala to protect a fungus?”
“If they believe it to be intelligent, comparatively helpless, and in danger, yes. Policy would allow them to do that even if the pannula are not directly affected by the ongoing clash.”
The Sakuntala's ears bent forward and his tail lay limp on the deck behind his chair. “This changes everything.”
“That is what I am saying. Because of its uniqueness, the pannula will become the focus of Commonwealth interests on Fluva.”
“It is so absurd.”
Masurathoo rolled his eyes. “The policies of governments often are. But both the Deyzara and the Sakuntala have to learn to deal with them.” He went silent, turning to gaze again at the rain-swept forest.
Deal with them, Jemunu-jah thought furiously. Unless—what if the Commonwealth Authority continued to remain ignorant of the pannula's hypothesized intelligence? Where would be the harm in that? Even if the bad-tempered human's assessment was correct, it could be many, many years before anyone else happened to stumble upon the knowledge.
Could he persuade Hasa to keep silent on the matter? Jemunu-jah doubted it. It was likely that such a momentous discovery would mean that honors would be bestowed on the human by his own kind. Even if the Deyzara did not entirely believe it, it was reasonable to assume that Masurathoo would eventually support the human's contentions, if only for the effect it would have on any Sakuntala uprising. Jemunu-jah had no quarrel with that. He also wanted to see an end to the conflict. But did he want to see it enforced, on some of his own admittedly misguided people, by Commonwealth weapons?
Ancient emotions stirred within him, his mind and heart boiling with conflict. He could save injudicious Sakuntala youth from assault by intervening Commonwealth forces and protect the paramouncy of his kind in the eyes of the Commonwealth government. All he had to do was kill his two companions. Masurathoo would be easy. Jemunu-jah knew he could take the Deyzara apart with his bare hands. Seeing to the demise of the feral human would be more difficult but should still be achievable. Only one thing held him back.
He was supposed to be civilized now.
Murdering his companions would not be the civilized thing to do. So what if the humans interceded to stop the misguided uprising of the radicals among his own kind? Did he not seek the same end? Few, if any, of those involved were likely to be of his own clan. That realization, at least, placed his simmering thoughts well within tradition. Let the humans shoot a few wild-eyed members of opposing clans. From the standpoint of custom, that would be all to the good.
As to his people suffering a lessening of importance in the eyes of the Commonwealth while it strove to understand and assist the pannula, where was the harm in that? Would it not be offset by the increased aid and attention the Commonwealth would bring to Fluva?
He was torn. His heart told him to kill, his mind to participate. Maybe the destiny of the Sakuntala did not rest in his hands, but their immediate prospects did. It was a responsibility he had not asked for and did not want.
“You are become awfully quiet,” Masurathoo murmured through his speaking trunk.
A single strike to the back of that naked fleshy skull, Jemunu-jah thought. Then a quick push and the oblivious Deyzara would topple over the edge of the porch to land in the water. Waiting scavengers would make quick work of the body.
Jemunu-jah found himself wrestling harder with his own inner demons than ever he had with a clan opponent.
As he trundled through the village along the crude network of walkways suspended above the water, Hasa groused silently at the time it was taking for deliverance to arrive. He'd have a word or two for the crew of the rescuing craft, and they wouldn't be pretty. A pair of villagers going the other way greeted him with the respect due an honored guest. He snapped out a terse Sakuntala greeting, indifferent to whether they understood him or not. Damn stinking aborigines—he'd be more than glad to get back to Taulau and what passed for civilization on this miserable soggy pustulant tumor of a world.
Even his rivals, of whom there were many, would have to fete him when he announced his findings. Identifying potentially useful botanicals was one thing. Discovering a new intelligent species was several orders of magnitude more significant. While the immediate financial returns might not be as quick in coming, the recognition should lead to a flurry of opportunities. At the very least, he would be generally anointed the leading bioprospector on Fluva. Large companies and trading houses would seek out his advice, for which he could charge, and would be eager to employ him at extravagant rates. Furthermore, the discovery of the pannula would bring more such enterprises to Fluva. He intended to milk his finding shamelessly and methodically for all it was worth. Of course, even though they continued to express skepticism of his conclusions, he would be legally obligated to share the forthcoming plenty with Masurathoo and Jemunu-jah.
Unless . . .
It would be terrible if they failed to return. A real tragedy. No doubt there would be much high-throated keening among Jemunu-jah's clan and corresponding nauseating trunk blowing by Masurathoo's relations if both of them vanished in the Viisiiviisii. That would be too, too bad. He would be forced to deal with the glory and prospects raised by the discovery of the pannula all by himself. Could one person handle so much fame and wealth?
Though it might take some effort, he was convinced that he could.
There was a problem, however. Though simple, unsophisticated folk who had little contact with civilization, the local villagers had seen him arrive in the company of two ostensibly healthy, alert companions. He doubted they would care one way or another if the Deyzara in their midst happened to vanish one day, but Jemunu-jah presented a much bigger problem. While he was not of their village or a related clan, they knew him now as a respected and highly educated member of an important and influential northern group. His sudden disappearance, coupled with that of Masurathoo, would arouse more than suspicion. They might not take any action themselves, but there was the danger that they might pass their qualms on to the rescue team. Such accusations could place him in a position sufficiently awkward that even he might not be able to find a way to wriggle free.
He cursed himself for lack of forethought. The time to have carried out such intentions would have been days earlier, when the three of them were still alone in the depths of the Viisiiviisii. But then, the members of the hunting party that had found them might not have been as inclined to assist him as they had been eager to help a fellow Sakuntala like Jemunu-jah.
Like it or not, it looked as if he was going to have to share the success that was coming his way. That left him feeling grouchy and even more out of sorts than usual. Masurathoo rema
rked upon it when he finally rejoined them later that afternoon. Jemunu-jah did not.
Sakuntala regarded human with unusual intensity while human gazed back with uncommon thoughtfulness. Between them, Masurathoo blithely assumed he was still among not only friends but civilized ones.
It was just as well he did not know otherwise. Already seriously stressed, his highly strung nervous system might not have been able to cope with the disclosure of his good friends' conflicted thoughts.
17
Matthias liked the Other Place. Most eating establishments in Taulau catered to the majority Deyzara and Sakuntala. Few had the inclination and the skills to prepare food that was not only suitable for humans serving with the Commonwealth Authority but tasty as well. The Other Place (a loose transliteration of its Deyzaran name) was one of them.
The proprietor, an obsequious but highly skilled Deyzara named Agruarasa, waited on her personally. It was a point of some pride that the head of the Commonwealth Authority, the human High Hata, chose to dine in his place of business. She listened politely to the familiar stream of sycophancy that spilled from his speaking trunk along with occasional mentions of actual food and then ordered.
It would have been nice if Jack could have joined her for lunch, she mused, but the laboratory complex where he worked was located on the other side of the main port and was too far for an easy commute in the rain. Besides, he would typically be as buried in his work as she was in hers. They understood that about each other. It was one of the reasons their marriage, unlike so many on Fluva, survived.
Drowning World Page 25
