by David Brin
Kault stared unblinkingly at Uthacalthing. His breathing slits puffed. “Babes,” he muttered softly in an obscure dialect of Galactic Twelve—unaware perhaps that Uthacalthing understood. “Infants, ruled by unruly children, tutored by juvenile delinquents!”
Uthacalthing’s eyes separated and his tendrils pulsed with irony. They crafted fsu’usturatu, which sympathizes, while laughing.
Damn good thing Thennanin have a rock’s sensitivity to empathy. Uthacalthing thought in Anglic as he hurriedly erased the glyph. Of the Galactic clans involved in the current spate of fanaticism, the Thennanin were less repulsive than most. Some of them actually believed they were acting in the best interests of those they conquered.
It was apparent whom Kault meant when he spoke of “delinquents” leading the clan of Earth astray. Uthacalthing was far from offended.
“These infants fly starships, Kault,” he answered in the same dialect, to the Thennanin’s obvious surprise. “The neo-chimpanzees may be the finest clients to appear in half a megayear … with the possible exception of their cousins, the neo-dolphins. Shall we not respect their earnest desire to do their duty?”
Kault’s crest went rigid at the mention of the other Earthling client race. “My Tymbrimi friend, did you mean to imply that you have heard more about the dolphin ship? Have they been found?”
Uthacalthing felt a little guilty for toying with Kault. All considered, he was not a bad sort. He came from a minority political faction among the Thennanin which had a few times even spoken for peace with the Tymbrimi. Nevertheless, Uthacalthing had reasons for wanting to pique his fellow diplomat’s interest, and he had prepared for an encounter like this.
“Perhaps I have said more than I should. Please think nothing more of it. Now I am saddened to say that I really must be going. I am late for a meeting. I wish you good fortune and survival in the days ahead, Kault.”
He bowed in the casual fashion of one patron to another and turned to go. But within, Uthacalthing was laughing. For he knew the real reason Kault was here at the Library. The Thennanin could only have come looking for him.
“Wait!” Kault called out in Anglic.
Uthacalthing looked back. “Yes, respected colleague?”
“I …” Kault dropped back into GalSeven. “I must speak with you regarding the evacuation. You may have heard, my ship is in disrepair. I am at the moment bereft of transport.”
The Thennanin’s crest fluttered in discomfort. Protocol and diplomatic standing were one thing, but the fellow obviously would rather not be in town when the Gubru landed. “I must ask therefore. Will there be some opportunity to discuss the possibility of mutual aid?” The big creature said it in a rush.
Uthacalthing pretended to ponder the idea seriously. After all, his species and Kault’s were officially at war right now. He nodded at last. “Be at my compound about midnight tomorrow night—no later than a mictaar thereafter, mind you. And please bring only a minimum of baggage. My boat is small. With that understood, I gladly offer you a ride to sanctuary.”
He turned to his neo-chimp driver. “That would only be courteous and proper, would it not, corporal?”
The poor chimmie blinked up at Uthacalthing in confusion. She had been selected for this duty because she knew GalSeven. But that was a far cry from penetrating the arcana that were going on here.
“Y-yessir. It, it seems like the kind thing to do.”
Uthacalthing nodded, and smiled at Kault. “There you are, my dear colleague. Not merely correct, but kind. It is well when we elders learn from such wise precociousness, and add that quality to our own actions, is it not?”
For the first time, he saw the Thennanin blink. Turmoil radiated from the creature. At last though, relief won out over suspicion that he was being played for the fool. Kault bowed to Uthacalthing. And then, because Uthacalthing had included her in the conversation, he added a brief, shallow nod to the little chimmie.
“For my clientsss and myssselfff, I thank you,” he said awkwardly in Anglic. Kault snapped his elbow spikes, and his Ynnin clients followed him as he lumbered into the floater. The closing cupola cut off the sharp dome light at last. The chims from the Library looked at Uthacalthing gratefully.
The floater rose on its gravity cushion and moved off rapidly. Uthacalthing’s driver held the door of his own wheelcar for him, but he stretched his arms and inhaled deeply. “I am thinking that it might be a nice idea to go for a walk,” he told her. “The embassy is only a short distance from here. Why don’t you take a few hours off, corporal, and spend some time with your family and friends?”
“B-but ser …”
“I will be all right,” he said firmly. He bowed, and felt her rush of innocent joy at the simple courtesy. She bowed deeply in return.
Delightful creatures, Uthacalthing thought as he watched the car drive off. I have met a few neo-chimpanzees who even seem to have the glimmerings of a true sense of humor.
I do hope the species survives.
He started walking. Soon he had left the clamor of the Library behind him and passed into a residential neighborhood. The breeze had left the night air clear, and the city’s soft lights did not drive away the flickering stars. At this time the Galactic rim was a ragged spill of diamonds across the sky. There were no traces to be seen of the battle in space; it had been too small a skirmish to leave much visible residue.
All around Uthacalthing were sounds that told of the difference of this evening. There were distant sirens and the growl of aircraft passing overhead. On nearly every block he heard someone crying … voices, human or chim, shouting or murmuring in frustration and fear. On the fluttering level of empathy, waves beat up against one another in a froth of emotion. His corona could not deflect the inhabitants’ dread as they awaited morning.
Uthacalthing did not try to keep it out as he strolled up dimly lit streets lined with decorative trees. He dipped his tendrils into the churning emotional flux and drew forth above him a strange new glyph. It floated, nameless and terrible, Time’s ageless threat made momentarily palpable.
Uthacalthing smiled an ancient, special kind of smile. And at that moment nobody, not even in the darkness, could possibly have mistaken him for a human being.
There are many paths, … he thought, again savoring the open, undisciplined nuances of Anglic.
He left the thing he had made to hang in the air, dissolving slowly behind him, as he walked under the slowly wheeling pattern of the stars.
10
Robert
Robert awoke two hours before dawn.
There was a period of disorientation as the strange feelings and images of sleep slowly dissipated. He rubbed his eyes, trying to clear his head of muzzy, clouded confusion.
He had been running, he recalled. Running as one does sometimes but only in dreams—in long, floating steps that reach for leagues and seem barely to touch down. Around him had shifted and drifted vague shapes, mysteries, and half-born images that slipped out of reach even as his waking mind tried to recall them.
Robert looked over at Athaclena, lying nearby in her own sleeping bag. Her brown Tymbrimi ruff—that tapered helm of soft brown fur—was puffed out. The silvery tendrils of her corona waved delicately, as if probing and grappling with something invisible in the space overhead.
She sighed and spoke very low—a few short phrases in the rapid, highly syllabic Tymbrimi dialect of Galactic Seven.
Perhaps that explained his own strange dreams, Robert realized. He must have been picking up traces of hers!
Watching the waving tendrils, he blinked. For just a moment it had seemed as if something was there, floating in the air just above the sleeping alien girl. It had been like … like …
Robert frowned, shaking his head. It hadn’t been like anything at all. The very act of trying to compare it to something else seemed to drive the thing away even as he thought about it.
Athaclena sighed and turned over. Her corona settled down. There were no more hal
f glimmers in the dimness.
Robert slid out of his bag and fumbled for his boots before standing. He felt his way around the towering spine-stone beneath which they had made camp. There was barely enough starlight to find a path among the strange monoliths.
He came to a promontory looking over toward the westward mountain chain, and the northern plains to his right. Below this ridgetop vantage point there lay a gently rippling sea of dark woods. The trees filled the air with a damp, heavy aroma.
Resting his back against a spine-stone, he sat down on the ground to try to think.
If only the adventure were all there was to this trip. An idyllic interlude in the Mountains of Mulun in the company of an alien beauty. But there was no forgetting, no escaping the guilty sureness that he should not be here. He really ought to be with his classmates—with his militia unit—facing the troubles alongside them.
That was not to be, however. Once again, his mother’s career had interfered with his own life. It was not the first time Robert had wished he were not the son of a politician.
He watched the stars, sparkling in bright strokes that followed the meeting of two Galactic spiral arms.
Perhaps if I had known more adversity in my life, I might be better prepared for what’s to come. Better able to accept disappointment.
It wasn’t just that he was the son of the Planetary Coordinator, with all of the advantages that came with status. It went beyond that.
All through childhood he had noticed that where other boys had stumbled and suffered growing pains, he had always somehow had the knack of moving gracefully. Where most had groped their way in awkwardness and embarrassment toward adolescence and sexuality, he had slipped into pleasure and popularity with all the comfort and ease of putting on an old shoe.
His mother—and his starfarer father, whenever Sam Tennace sojourned on Garth—had always emphasized that he should watch the interactions of his peers, not simply let things happen and accept them as inevitable. And indeed, he began to see how, in every age group, there were a few like him—for whom growing up was easier somehow. They stepped lightly through the morass of adolescence while everyone else slogged, overjoyed to find an occasional patch of solid ground. And it seemed many of those lucky ones accepted their happy fate as if it were some sign of divine election. The same was true of the most popular girls. They had no empathy, no compassion for more normal kids.
In Robert’s case, he had never sought a reputation as a playboy. But one had come, over time, almost against his will. In his heart a secret fear had started to grow: a superstitition that he had confided in nobody. Did the universe balance all things? Did it take away to compensate for whatever it gave? The Cult of Ifni was supposed to be a starfarer’s joke. And yet sometimes things seemed so contrived!
It was silly to suppose that trials only hardened men, automatically making them wise. He knew many who were stupid, arrogant, and mean, in spite of having suffered.
Still …
Like many humans, he sometimes envied the handsome, flexible, self-sufficient Tymbrimi. A young race by Galactic standards, they were nevertheless old and galaxy-wise compared with Mankind. Humanity had discovered sanity, peace, and a science of mind only a generation before Contact. There were still plenty of kinks to be worked out of Terragens society. The Tymbrimi, in comparison, seemed to know themselves so well.
Is that the basic reason why I am attracted to Athaclena? Symbolically she is the elder, the more knowledgeable one. It gives me an opportunity to be awkward and stumble, and enjoy the role.
It was all so confusing, and Robert wasn’t even certain of his own feelings. He was having fun up here in the mountains with Athaclena, and that made him ashamed. He resented his mother bitterly for sending him, and felt guilty about that as well.
Oh, if only I’d been allowed to fight! Combat, at least, was straightforward and easy to understand. It was ancient, honorable, simple.
Robert looked up quickly. There, among the stars, a pinpoint had flared up to momentary brilliance. As he watched, two more sudden brightnesses burst forth, then another. The sharp, glowing sparks lasted long enough for him to note their positions.
The pattern was too regular to be an accident … twenty degree intervals above the equator, from the Sphinx all the way across to the Batman, where the red planet Tloona shone in the middle of the ancient hero’s belt.
So, it has come. The destruction of the synchronous satellite network had been expected, but it was startling actually to witness it. Of course this meant actual landings would not be long delayed.
Robert felt a heaviness and hoped that not too many of his human and chim friends had died.
I never found out if I had what it takes when things really counted. Now maybe I never will.
He was resolved about one thing. He would do the job he had been assigned—escorting a noncombatant alien into the mountains and supposed safety. There was one duty he had to perform tonight, while Athaclena slept. As silently as he could, Robert returned to their backpacks. He pulled the radio set from his lower left pouch and began disassembling it in the dark.
He was halfway finished when another sudden brightening made him look up at the eastern sky. A bolide streaked flame across the glittering starfield, leaving glowing embers in its wake. Something was entering fast, burning as it penetrated the atmosphere.
The debris of war.
Robert stood up and watched the manmade meteor lay a fiery trail across the sky. It disappeared behind a range of hills not more than twenty kilometers away. Perhaps much closer.
“God keep you,” he whispered to the warriors whose ship it must have been.
He had no fear of blessing his enemies, for it was clear which side needed help tonight, and would for a long time to come.
11
Galactics
The Suzerain of Propriety moved about the bridge of the flagship in short skips and hops, enjoying the pleasure of pacing while Gubru and Kwackoo soldiery ducked out of the way.
It might be a long time before the Gubru high priest would enjoy such freedom of movement again. After the occupation force landed, the Suzerain would not be able to set foot on the “ground” for many miktaars. Not until propriety was assured and consolidation complete could it touch the soil of the planet that lay just ahead of the advancing armada.
The other two leaders of the invasion force—the Suzerain of Beam and Talon and the Suzerain of Cost and Caution—did not have to operate under such restrictions. That was all right. The military and the bureaucracy had their own functions. But to the Suzerain of Propriety was given the task of overseeing Appropriateness of Behavior for the Gubru expedition. And to do that the priest would have to remain perched.
Far across the command bridge, the Suzerain of Cost and Caution could be heard complaining. There had been unexpected losses in the furious little fight the humans had put up. Every ship put out of commission hurt the Gubru cause in these dangerous times.
Foolish, short-sighted carping, the Suzerain of Propriety thought. The physical damage done by the humans’ resistance had been far less significant than the ethical and legal harm. Because the brief fight had been so sharp and effective, it could not simply be ignored. It would have to be credited.
The Earth wolflings had recorded, in action, their opposition to the arrival of Gubru might. Unexpectedly, they had done it with meticulous attention to the Protocols of War.
They may be more than mere clever beasts—
More than beasts—
Perhaps they and their clients should be studied—
Studied—zzooon
That gesture of resistance by the tiny Earthling flotilla meant that the Suzerain would have to remain perched for at least the initial part of the occupation. It would have to find an excuse, now, the sort of casus belli that would let the Gubru proclaim to the Five Galaxies that the Earthlings’ lease on Garth was null and void.
Until that happened, the Rules of War applied, and in en
forcing them, the Suzerain of Propriety knew there would be conflicts with the other two commanders. Its future lovers and competitors. Correct policy demanded tension among them, even if some of the laws the priest had to enforce struck it, deep down, as stupid.
Oh for the time, may it be soon—
Soon, when we are released from rules—zzooon
Soon, when Change rewards the virtuous—
When the Progenitors return—zzooon
The Suzerain fluttered its downy coat. It commanded one of its servitors, a fluffy, imperturbable Kwackoo, to bring a feather-blower and groomer.
The Earthlings will stumble—
They will give us justification—zzooon
12
Athaclena
That morning Athaclena could tell that something had happened the night before. But Robert said little in answer to her questions. His crude but effective empathy shield blocked her attempts at kenning.
Athaclena tried not to feel insulted. After all, her human friend had only just begun learning to use his modest talents. He could not know the many subtle ways an empath could use to show a desire for privacy. Robert only knew how to close the door completely.
Breakfast was quiet. When Robert spoke she answered in monosyllables. Logically, Athaclena could understand his guardedness, but then there was no rule that said she had to be outgoing, either.
Low clouds crested the ridgelines that morning, to be sliced by rows of serrated spine-stones. It made for an eerie, foreboding scene. They hiked through the tattered wisps of brumous fog in silence, gradually climbing higher in the foothills leading toward the Mountains of Mulun. The air was still and seemed to carry a vague tension Athaclena could not identify. It tugged at her mind, drawing forth unbeckoned memories.
She recalled a time when she had accompanied her mother into the northern mountains on Tymbrim—riding gurval-back up a trail only slightly wider than this one—to attend a Ceremony of Uplift for the Tytlal.
