by David Brin
Soon they were near the docks—in fact, not far from the spot where Fiben had spent part of the afternoon watching the gulls. The rain now fell in sudden, unpredictable sheets. Each time it blew away again the air was left startlingly clear, enhancing every odor—from decaying fish to the beery stink of a fisherman’s tavern across the way, where a few lights still shone and low, sad music leaked into the night.
Fiben’s nostrils flared. He sniffed, trying to trace something that seemed to fade in and out with the fickle rain. Likewise, Fiben’s senses fed his imagination, laying out possibilities for his consideration.
His companion led him around a corner and Fiben saw three piers. Several dark, bulky shadows lay moored next to each. One of those, no doubt, was the smugglers’ boat. Fiben stopped Sylvie, again with a hand on her arm.
“We’d better hurry,” she urged.
“Wouldn’t do to be too early,” he replied. “It’s going to be cramped and smelly in that boat. Come on back here. There’s something we may not have a chance to do for some time.”
She gave him a puzzled expression as he drew her back around the corner, into the shadows. When he put his arms around her, she stiffened, then relaxed and tilted her face up.
Fiben kissed her. Sylvie answered in kind.
When he started using his lips to nibble from her left ear across the line of her jaw and down her neck, Sylvie sighed. “Oh, Fiben. If only we had time. If only you knew how much …”
“Shh,” he told her as he let go. With a flourish he took off his parka and laid it on the ground. “What …?” she began. But he drew her down to sit on the jacket. He settled down behind her.
Her tension eased a bit when he began combing his fingers through her hair, grooming her.
“Whoosh,” Sylvie said. “For a moment I thought—”
“Who me? You should know me better than that, darlin’. I’m the kind who likes to build up slowly. None of this rush-rush stuff. We can take our time.”
She turned her head to smile up at him. “I’m glad. I won’t be pink for a week, anyway. Though, I mean, we don’t really have to wait that long. It’s just—”
Her words cut short suddenly as Fiben’s left arm tightened hard around her throat. In a flash he reached into her parka and clicked open her pocket knife. Sylvie’s eyes bulged as he pressed the sharp blade close against her carotid artery.
“One word,” he whispered directly into her left ear. “One sound and you feed the gulls tonight. Do you understand?”
She nodded, jerkily. He could feel her pulse pound, the vibration carrying up the knife blade. Fiben’s own heart was not beating much slower. “Mouth your words,” he told her hoarsely. “I’ll lip read. Now tell me, where are tracers planted?”
Sylvie blinked. Aloud, she said, “What—” That was all. Her voice stopped as he instantly increased pressure.
“Try again,” he whispered.
This time she formed the words silently.
“What … are … you talking about, Fiben?”
His own voice was a barely audible murmur in her ear. “They’re waiting for us out there, aren’t they, darlin’? And I don’t mean fairy tale chim smugglers. I’m talking Gubru, sweets. You’re leading me right into their fine feathered clutches.”
Sylvie stiffened. “Fiben … I … no! No, Fiben.”
“I smell bird!” he hissed. “They’re out there, all right. And as soon as I picked up that scent it all suddenly made perfect sense!”
Sylvie remained silent. Her eyes were eloquent enough by themselves.
“Oh, Gailet must think I’m a prize sap. Now that I think on it, of course the escape must’ve been arranged! In fact, the date must’ve been set for some time. You all probably didn’t count on this storm tying up the fishing fleet. That tale about a smuggler captain was a resourceful ad lib to push back my suspicions. Did you think of it yourself, Sylvie?”
“Fiben—”
“Shut up. Oh, it was appealing, all right, to imagine some chims were smart enough to be pulling runs to Cilmar and back, right under the enemy’s beak! Vanity almost won, Sylvie. But I was once a scout pilot, remember? I started thinking about how hard that’d be to pull off, even in weather like this!”
He sniffed the air, and there it was again, that distinct musty odor.
Now that he thought about it, he realized that none of the tests he and Gailet had been put through, during the last several weeks, had dealt with the sense of smell. Of course not. Galactics think it’s mostly a relic for animals.
Moisture fell onto his hand, even though it was not raining just then. Sylvie’s tears dripped. She shook her head.
“You … won’t … be harmed, Fiben. The Suz—Suzerain just wants to ask you some questions. Then you’ll be let go! It … It promised!”
So this was just another test, after all. Fiben felt like laughing at himself for ever believing escape was possible. I guess I’ll see Gailet again sooner than I thought.
He was beginning to feel ashamed of the way he had terrorized Sylvie. After all, this had all been just a “game” anyway. Simply one more examination. It wouldn’t do to take anything too seriously under such conditions. She was only doing her job.
He started to relax, easing his grip on her throat, when suddenly part of what Sylvie had said struck Fiben.
“The Suzerain said it’d let me go?” he whispered. “You mean it’ll send me back to jail, don’t you?”
She shook her head vigorously, “N-no!” she mouthed. “It’ll drop us off in the mountains. I meant that part of my deal with you and Gailet! The Suzerain promised, if you answer its questions—”
“Wait a minute,” Fiben snapped. “You aren’t talking about the Suzerain of Propriety, are you?”
She shook her head.
Fiben felt suddenly lightheaded. “Which … Which Suzerain is waiting for us out there?”
Sylvie sniffed. “The Suzerain of Cost and … of Cost and Caution,” she whispered.
He closed his eyes in the dreadful realization of what this meant. This was no “game” or test, after all. Oh, Goodall, he thought. Now he had to think to save his own neck!
If it had been the Suzerain of Beam and Talon, Fiben would have been ready to throw in the towel right then and there. For then all of the resources of the Gubru military machine would have been arrayed against him. As it was, the chances were slim enough. But Fiben was starting to get ideas.
Accountants. Insurance agents. Bureaucrats. Those made up the army of the Suzerain of Cost and Caution. Maybe, Fiben thought. Just maybe.
Before doing anything, though, he had to deal with Sylvie. He couldn’t just tie her up and leave her. And he simply wasn’t a bloody-minded killer. That led to only one option. He had to win her cooperation, and quickly.
He might tell her of his certainty that the Suzerain of Cost and Caution wasn’t quite the stickler for truth the Suzerain of Propriety was. When it was its word against hers, why should the bird keep any promise to release them?
In fact, tonight’s raid on its peer might even be illegal, by the invaders’ standards, in which case it would be stupid to let two chims who knew about it run around free. Knowing the Gubru, Fiben figured the Suzerain of Cost and Caution would probably let them go, all right—straight out an airlock into deep space.
Would she believe me, though, if I told her?
He couldn’t chance that. Fiben thought he knew another way to get Sylvie’s undivided attention. “I want you to listen to me carefully,” he told her. “I am not going out to meet your Suzerain. I am not going out there for one simple reason. If I walk out there, knowing what I now know, you and I can kiss my white card goodbye.”
Her eyes locked onto his. A tremor ran down her spine.
“You see, darlin’. I have to behave like a superlative example to chimpdom in order to qualify for that encomium. And what kind of superchimp goes and walks right into somethin’ he already knows is a trap? Hmm?
“No, Sylvie.
We’ll probably still get caught anyway. But we’ve gotta be caught tryin’ our very best to escape or it just won’t count! Do you see what I mean?”
She blinked a few times, and finally nodded.
“Hey,” he whispered amiably. “Cheer up! You should be glad I saw through this stunt. It just means our kid’ll be all the more clever a little bastard. He’ll probably find a way to blow up his kindergarten.”
Sylvie blinked. Hesitantly, she smiled. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “I guess that’s right.”
Fiben let his knife hand drop away and released Sylvie’s throat. He stood up. This was the moment of truth. All she probably had to do was let out a shout and the followers of the Suzerain of Cost and Caution would be on them in moments.
Instead, though, she pulled off her ring watch and handed it to Fiben. The tracer.
He nodded and offered her his hand to help her rise. She stumbled at first, still trembling from reaction. But he kept his arm around her as he led her back one block and a little south.
Now, if only this idea works, he thought.
The dovecote was where he remembered it, behind an ill-kempt group house in the neighborhood bordering the harbor. Everyone was asleep apparently. But Fiben nevertheless kept quiet as possible as he cut a few wires and crept into the coop.
It was dank and smelled uncomfortably of bird, The pigeons’ soft cooing reminded Fiben of Kwackoo.
“Come on, kids,” he whispered to them. “You’re gonna help me fool your cousins, tonight.”
He had recalled this place from one of his walks. The proximity was more than convenient, it was probably essential. He and Sylvie dared not leave the harbor area until they had disposed of the tracer.
The pigeons edged away from him. While Sylvie kept watch, Fiben cornered and seized a fat, strong-looking bird. With a piece of string he bound the ring watch to its foot. “Nice night for a long flight, don’t ya think?” he whispered, and threw the pigeon into the air. He repeated the process with his own watch, for good measure.
He left the door open. If the birds returned early, the Gubru might follow the tracer signal here. But their typically noisy arrival would send the whole flock flapping off again, starting another wild goose chase.
Fiben congratulated himself on his cleverness as he and Sylvie ran eastward, away from the harbor. Soon they were in a dilapidated industrial area. Fiben knew where he was. He had been here before, leading the placid horse, Tycho, on his first foray into town after the invasion. Sometime before they reached the wall, he signaled for a stop. He had to catch his breath, though Sylvie seemed hardly winded at all.
Well, she’s a dancer, of course, he thought.
“Okay, now we strip,” he told her.
To her credit, Sylvie did not even bat an eye. The logic was inescapable. Her watch might not have been the only tracer planted on their person. She hurried through the disrobing and was finished before him. When everything lay in a pile, Fiben spared her a brief, appreciative whistle. Sylvie blushed. “Now what?” she asked.
“Now we go for the fence,” he answered.
“The fence? But Fiben—”
“C’mon. I’ve wanted to look at the thing close up for some time anyway.”
It was only a few hundred yards farther before they reached the broad strip of ground the aliens had leveled all the way around Port Helenia. Sylvie shivered as they approached the tall barrier, which glistened damply under the light of bright watch globes placed at wide intervals along its length.
“Fiben,” Sylvie said as he stepped out onto the strip. “We can’t go out there.”
“Why not?” he asked. Still, he stopped and turned to look back at her. “Do you know anyone who has?”
She shook her head. “Why would anybody? It’s obviously crazy! Those watch globes …”
“Yeah,” Fiben said contemplatively. “I was just wondering how many of ’em it took to line a fence around the whole city. Ten thousand? Twenty? Thirty?”
He was remembering the guardian drones that had lined the much smaller and much more sensitive perimeter around the former Tymbrimi Embassy, that day when the chancery building exploded and Fiben had had his lesson in ET humor. Those devices had turned out to be pretty unimpressive compared with “Rover,” or the typical battle robot the Gubru Talon Soldiers took into battle.
I wonder about these, he thought, and took another step forward.
“Fiben!” Sylvie sounded close to panic. “Let’s try the gate. We can tell the guards … we can tell them we were robbed. We were hicks from the farms, visiting town, and somebody stole our clothes and ID cards. If we act dumb enough, maybe they’ll just let us through!”
Yeah, sure. Fiben stepped closer still. Now he stood no more than half a dozen meters from the barrier. He saw that it comprised a series of narrow slats connected by wire at the top and bottom. He had chosen a point between two of the glowing globes, as far from each as possible. Still, as he approached he felt a powerful sensation that they were watching him.
The certainty filled Fiben with resignation. By now, of course, Gubru soldiery were on their way here. They would arrive any minute now. His best course was to turn around. To run. Now!
He glanced back at Sylvie. She stood where he had left her. It was easy to tell that she would rather be almost anywhere else in the world than here. He wasn’t at all sure why she had remained.
Fiben grabbed his left wrist with his right hand. His pulse was fast and thready and his mouth felt dry as sand. Trembling, he made an effort of will and took another step toward the fence.
An almost palpable dread seemed to close in all around him, as he had felt when he heard poor Simon Levin’s death wail, during that useless, futile battle out in space. He felt a dark foreboding of imminent doom. Mortality pressed in—a sense of the futility of life.
Fiben turned around, slowly, to look at Sylvie.
He grinned.
“Cheap chickenshit birds!” he grunted. “They aren’t watch globes at all! They’re stupid psi radiators!”
Sylvie blinked. Her mouth opened. Closed. “Are you sure?” she asked unbelievingly.
“Come on out and see,” he urged. “Right there you’ll suddenly be sure you’re being watched. Then you’ll think every Talon Soldier in space is coming after you!”
Sylvie swallowed. She clenched her fists and moved out onto the empty strip. Step by step, Fiben watched her. He had to give Sylvie credit. A lesser chimmie would have cut and run, screaming, long before she reached his position.
Beads of perspiration popped out on her brow, joining the intermittent raindrops.
Part of him, distant from the adrenaline roar, appreciated her naked form. It helped to distract his mind. So, she really has nursed. The faint stretch marks of childbearing and lactation were often faked by some chimmies, in order to make themselves look more attractive, but in this case it was clear that Sylvie had borne a child. I wonder what her story is.
When she stood next to him, eyes closed tightly, she whispered. “What … what’s happening to me right now?”
Fiben listened to his own feelings. He thought of Gailet and her long mourning for her friend and protector, the giant chim Max. He thought of the chims he had seen blown apart by the enemy’s overpowering weaponry.
He remembered Simon.
“You feel like your best friend in all the world just died,” he told her gently, and took her hand. Her answering grip was hard, but across her face there swept a look of relief.
“Psi emitters. That’s … that’s all?” She opened her eyes. “Why … why those cheap, chickenshit birds!”
Fiben guffawed. Sylvie slowly smiled. With her free hand she covered her mouth.
They laughed, standing there in the rain in the midst of a riverbed of sorrow. They laughed, and when their tears finally slowed they walked together the rest of the way to the fence, still holding hands.
“Now when I say push, push!”
“I’m ready, Fiben.”
Sylvie crouched beneath him, feet set, shoulder braced against one of the tall slats, arms gripping the part of the wall next to it.
Standing over her, Fiben took a similar stance and planted his feet in the mud. He took several deep breaths.
“Okay, push!”
Together they heaved. The slats were already a few centimeters apart. As he and Sylvie strained, he could feel the space begin to widen. Evolution is never wasted, Fiben thought as he heaved with all his might.
A million years ago humans were going through all the pangs of self-uplift, evolving what the Galactics said could only be given—sapiency—the ability to think and to covet the stars.
Meanwhile, though, Fiben’s ancestors had not been idle. We were getting strong! Fiben concentrated on that thought while sweat popped out on his brow and the plastisheath slats groaned. He grunted and could feel Sylvie’s own desperate struggle as her back quivered against his leg.
“Ah!” Sylvie lost her footing in the mud and her legs flew out, throwing her backward hard. Recoil spun Fiben about, and the springy slats bounced back, tossing him on top of her.
For a minute or two they just lay there, breathing in shuddering gasps. Finally though, Sylvie spoke.
“Please, honey … not tonight. I gotta headache.”
Fiben laughed. He rolled off of her and onto his back, coughing. They needed humor. It was their best defense against the constant hammering of the psi globes. Panic was incipient, ever creeping on the verge of their minds. Laughter kept it at bay.
They helped each other up and inspected what they had accomplished. The gap was noticeably larger, perhaps ten centimeters, now. But it was still far from wide enough. And Fiben knew they were running out of time. They would need at least three hours to have any hope of reaching the foothills before daybreak.
At least if they made it through they would have the storm on their side. Another sheet of rain swept across them as he and Sylvie settled in again, bracing themselves. The lightning had drawn closer over the last half hour. Thunder rolled, shaking trees and rattling shutters.
