HOW DARE COLORS GET INTO SUCH CONDITION, MAKING SUCH DEAD SMELLS! NPL, PLS ARE YOUNGER, BUT TLP AND HGF KNOW WHEN SMELL TOO BAD. WHY DELAY? THIS SPECIAL TIME AND SPECIAL PLACE THIS TIME. DELAY CAUSE PROBLEMS. COULD BE ALL WRONG. TIMING IS ESSENTIAL NOW OF ALL TIMES. Railing at them angrily, the keeper pushed them ahead of it—swatting first Kincaid’s Plus and then Tip, Nil and Huf because they weren’t moving fast enough to suit it—through the door, which was emphatically slammed shut.
As much amused by the scolding their friends had received as relieved by the knowledge they had acted properly, Kincaid and Laria locked arms and made their way back to their ground vehicle.
Such dead smells? Kincaid said rhetorically, grinning. Could cause great problems?
They did smell and they were trying to put something over on us.
And succeeded very well, didn’t they, dear heart?
I concur, dear man. I concur.
He stopped and, in the peculiarly pellucid light of Clarf, looked deeply into her eyes and touched her mind.
If they were the problem, Laria ...
She caught his hands. I haven’t asked for any promises, Kincaid. I am first and always your friend.
Yes, that you are, dear heart. That you always are. Then he gave her a gentle push toward the ground car and he drove them back to the Tower.
three
The Washington hung behind the largest of the three moons that circled the subject planet, while probes began their exploratory flights. Thian had control of those investigating the planet while Clancy and Semirame Kloo had sent theirs to the sphere set in a geosynchronous orbit above what appeared to be the same sort of flat field used for Hiver scout ships on the Xh-33 Hiver world.
“That ship is ancient,” Clancy reported to Admiral Ashiant, who was seated behind the Talents’ couches.
“It is?”
“The hull’s pitted,” Rame Kloo added. “And that odd covering they use on their spheres has all worn away. Never seen that before. We should ask the ’Dinis about such erosion.”
“I’ll send a message to Captain Spktm on the KSTS,” Clancy said, and gestured for Rame to continue searching without him for a moment.
“Can you get inside the sphere, Commander?” the Admiral asked Kloo, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, as he peered at the screen which did indeed show the deterioration of the surface of the Hiver vessel.
“Indeed we can, sir,” Rame said. “They left a door open for us,” she added in a droll voice.
The Admiral recoiled slightly in reflex as the probe dove for a jagged hole in the exterior. For a moment, the screen was black. Then the probe’s lights came on and displayed the now-familiar drive area, did a sweep and then focused on the hull fragments from the hole littering the deck.
“Just what we need,” Clancy said and activated the probe’s sweeper to collect the debris. “I’ll just ’port them to the lab, sir, and we should get an estimate of its age from forensic examination.”
“I’ll tell them to expect it,” the Admiral said, raising his wrist com to his lips.
“If you wouldn’t mind, sir,” Clancy said, grinning to himself. Sometimes he had the notion that Admiral Ashiant felt somewhat at a disadvantage in the presence of the Talents. “Spktm is querying its experts on the deterioration of the sphere’s skin. It’ll come back if it has any information.”
“Ah, here we are, sir,” Thian said, gesturing to the screens he had just activated, showing pictures of the surface taken by the probes he was controlling. “Odd.”
“What’s odd?” the Admiral asked, lowering the com now that he had contacted the lab technicians.
“I’d’ve expected a much larger facility if this planet has been settled as long as the age of the ship seems to indicate.”
“Yes, you’re right in that. The Xh-33 had a much larger installation near its field. Can you see the entrances to the underground scout storage?”
Thian shook his head. One probe swooped lower to the ground and then quartered the field area. Thian halted it a few centimeters above the ground.
“I can just make out a long seam, sir...”
“Yes, yes, and covered with sand or dust or whatever.”
“Hangars don’t look to have been opened in a long while,” Thian said.
“No, they don’t.”
“And if you’ll look to the other screen, sir, there doesn’t seem to be as much under cultivation.”
“Is this colony then dying?”
“Doesn’t look to be, not with those flourishing crops which seem to be well tended. In fact, it’s a rather nice world, Admiral. There’s a good balance between cultivated and fallow fields. See that stretch just coming up ... and forestry. And that lake ... lovely. Almost Arcadian,” Thian remarked.
“Arcadian?” the Admiral echoed. “What’s its designation on the Mrdini star maps.”
“Huh? Oh. Let me see.” Thian tapped a few keys before he said, “Cj-70.”
Ashiant gave a disapproving grunt deep in his throat. “Shame to stick to alpha numerics on it, pretty as it is. Let’s refer to it as Arcadia. Agreed?”
“Willingly, sir,” Thian said obligingly, and keyed in a substitution. “However, it’s certainly not as active as Xh- 33 was.”
To this the Admiral agreed, seeing the neatly weeded rows of greenery, the adjacent field sporting some dark purply-green foliage.
“Go on, will you, Thian?”
And Thian sent his two probes, in opposite directions, skimming over the surface at a height of twenty meters. In each screen, they saw several of the collection squares, none as big as those on Xh-33 but substantial enough. Finally the right-hand screen showed movement and homed in on it. Workers were trundling along in their ordered phalanx down to yet another collection point. The creatures were head to tail, moving on six limbs at a brisk trot. Two more limbs were cocked at each “head” and the watchers could see the specialized arrangement of trowel and fork.
“Those creatures aren’t as large as the ones Rojer recorded on Xh-33, are they?” Ashiant said, puzzled.
“No, they don’t seem to be,” Thian concurred, and activated another screen with the relevant disk of Rojer’s exploration of that planet. “Much smaller.”
“But carrying the same sort of tools, so they’re similar to the Xh-33 workers. Why would they be smaller?”
“I haven’t a clue, sir. Shall I get one of the xenbios in here?”
“Aren’t you projecting all this on their lab screens?”
“I am, but there’s no reason you can’t have a running report on their assessment.”
“Ask Lieutenant Weiman and ’Dini Grm to join me at the Talent post, will you?” Admiral Ashiant said into his wrist com, his eyes not leaving the screen.
While they were waiting for the specialists to arrive, Ashiant gave Thian a curious look. “Would you mind my asking you”—his glance included the other Talents—“a little more about Talent? I mean, I know that Primes do both telepathy and teleport over enormous distances, but Clancy here’s a T-2 and I know he ‘paths as well as ’ports and...” Ashiant shrugged, his rugged face indicating a sincere desire for a full briefing on the distinctions.
Thian grinned, saw Clancy reddening and Kloo trying hard not to grin.
“It’s basically a difference in strength and length, and combinations of inherent skills, sir. I can ‘path or ’port with or without generator gestalt. Clancy’s got more kinetic ability than telepathic, and while he’s strong in kinetics, he can’t really ‘path or receive far, even in gestalt, but his abilities multiply mine. And Kloo. Now she didn’t know she was a latent Talent until the Phobos examination. At first she could only send.” Thian smiled again at Kloo rolling her eyes over her discovery of latent abilities. “Now she can receive, and come in to add strength to our”—he pointed to Clancy—“merge. Alison Ann was a T-5 empath, but she’s advanced in skill, learning to ’port as well as ’path, but her initial ability made her a superb nurse.”
> “It’s association with us lot that’s improved her at least a full grade up,” Clancy said, slyly grinning at Thian.
“It does help to be continually in use, as it were, sir. Our father, Afra Lyon, was originally a T-3, but constant association with our grandmother increased his skills to T-2. He may even be as close to Prime as he wants to get.”
Clancy made a grimace of surprise.
“Not that he’d admit it,” Thian went on. “However, two T-2’s, one with more telepathic strength, the other with kinetic, like Yoshuk and Nesrun on Sef, or the Bastianmajanis, Flavia’s parents, on Altair, mesh Talent so well they are all but equal to Prime. My sister Zara, as another example, has both kinetic and telepathic ability but her empathic level is too high for her ever to be a Tower Prime. Like Elizara, she’s best fitted for the medical and healing profession. So not all T-1’s can automatically be Tower Primes... which, as you know, sir, FT&T badly needs.”
Ashiant nodded and gestured for Thian to continue.
“Below the 2’s, you get variations of the abilities to ’port or ’path, sometimes just one and not the other at all. Or some can receive but not send. Or send a fair distance on a gestalt but not receive. T-3’s are useful as aids to T-2’s or Primes. There are far more T-4’s and downward available as backup, but they don’t have the inherent stamina, even in connection with a gestalt, to work on their own, or for very long. However, engineers from T-4 down are apt to work solo anywhere and we’ve a lot of choice among them.”
“I thought that your cousin Asia”—Ashiant turned to Clancy—“trained with Rojer as engineer.”
“Yes, she did, sir, and is on the Columbia as T-4 and will probably get a post on a Tower.”
“That’s just the Federated Teleport and Telepath side of Talent,” Thian went on. “Sometimes we get T-2 rank for clairvoyants, finders and empaths. FT&T tries to contact anyone with latent Talent, assess and train them. Some are better off going into private firms where their particular level of other aspects of Talent, like dowsing or affinities to water and fire, makes them invaluable to their employers.” Thian made a face and scratched the back of his head. “I know my grandfather’s trying to lure some of the higher ranks away from commerce and industry because FT&T never expected to expand so heavily into this sort of assignment ...” Thian gestured to indicate the Washington and naval duty.
“Damned glad FT&T permits it,” Ashiant said, nodding his head and then giving Thian a wry smile. “Though I wouldn’t have thought I’d admit that when you first came aboard.”
Thian laughed out loud, remembering how many naval regulations and traditions he had set on their ears in his first few hours aboard the old Vadim. Ashiant grinned back and nodded his head.
“We’ve both learned a thing or two since then, haven’t we, Isthian?” Ashiant said, using his Prime’s full first name.
“I know I have, sir,” Thian said. He turned toward the entrance to the Talent quarters. “The xenbees’re here.” A discreet knock on the door panel followed his words.
However, when Ashiant explained the reason for their summons, neither Weiman nor Grm could give him any answer to the puzzle.
“The queens activate whatever sort of worker they need for the task,” Sam said, rubbing his chin while Grm, a dusty brown ’Dini, rocked gently on its flat feet. “I have been noticing, Admiral, that this planet doesn’t seem to be as densely farmed as Xh-33.”
“I have decreed”—the Admiral glanced about in a pseudopompous manner—“that this planet is to be referred to in all documentation as ‘Arcadia.’ ”
“That gives it more personality than Cj-70,” Sam said with a big grin.
Grm pondered this, fingering its chin. AGREE. AR-CA-DEE-A.
At that point, the Admiral’s wrist com bleeped quietly with an incoming message.
“Yes? Now that’s very interesting. Thank you, Commander,” Ashiant said. “They’ve dated the sphere by the deterioration of the metal fragments at five hundred and eighty years old.”
“That’s old!” Sam added a soft whistle. “What is the oldest sphere you ever encountered, Grm?”
“This one older than any seen,” Grm replied in good Basic, still rocking on its feet. “We have only two hundred years fighting. That is much older.” Now it shook its head up and down and clicked softly in its throat. “Far, far from homeworld too.”
“Rather daunting, actually,” Ashiant murmured. “Just how deeply have they penetrated our galaxy?”
The probes had entered the night side of the planet.
“Shall we continue, sir?”
“Yes, since I believe those probes are equipped for dark-vision. I want to know just how many collection points and queen installations there are, and where.”
“Queens live deep under the ground,” Grm said, pointing to the deck and jabbing its digit to indicate considerable depth.
“Have we got any probes sensitive enough to pick up queen life-form readings?” Ashiant asked Thian.
“Rojer managed to do some probing in the collection facilities on Xh-33,” Thian said, “but he didn’t actually find a tunnel that opened into a queen’s living quarters. It was a maze ... with low-ceilinged waiting places for the various types of workers.” He shook his head at the immensity of such an undertaking.
“Much smaller workers,” Sam said, still rubbing his jaw. “Don’t understand what that could mean. Prime, can you get us some soil samples from”—he grinned—“Arcadia’s surface? Dr. Tru Blairik, the bio on the Columbia, suggests that the soil on Marengo and Talavera was deficient in a variety of minerals and earths. We also have the components of the Xh-33 for comparison.”
“I’ll direct the probes to start collecting soil samples. Random selection, Lieutenant?” Thian asked.
“Yes, please.”
“We can help you now,” Clancy said. “There’s nothing left in that sphere that we haven’t seen in the others, though it doesn’t have escape pods. Maybe that was a brand-new innovation for the Hivers when they met Mrdinis, Grm.” He grinned at the ’Dini, who swiveled its poll eye around to Clancy.
“Int’resting.” Admiral Ashiant began to rub his chin thoughtfully.
“Indeed,” Grm agreed, continuing to rock as if that was as much an aid to thought as jaw rubbing.
“Prime, have we any updates from Squadron ... excuse me, Fleet B?” the Admiral asked.
Thian leaned across to Clancy and indicated that the T-2 was to take over the maneuvering of the probes. Clancy nodded as he and Rame took firm control of the two, while Thian leaned into one of the Washington’s generators for the gestalt needed for a far sending. While he could have done it without aid, he had learned to save unassisted contact for emergencies.
Rojer? You available?
Always, was the cheerful reply, and a mental sketch of a deep bow.
Is it daytime wherever you are? Thian couldn’t be sure, since it was his brother’s touch that he had contacted, not the ship or a planetary surface.
It is—and I’m on Talavera, where we’ve started investigations.
And?
This is the one with a failed Hiver colony, and we’ve about concluded that the soil lacked some element vital to the queens. There’s one queen corpse left and a few workers’, but they’ve been here a long time.
Five hundred and eighty years or so?
What? No. At least I don’t think so. Why?
Thian informed his brother of their discoveries on Arcadia, emphasizing the size of the workers.
That’s int’resting, Rojer said. Yakamasura and Blairik noticed that with the worker shells here. Much smaller than those at Xh-33. You can see the difference with the naked eye. Are you telling me that the planet you’re investigating is that old and not overcrowded?
That’s what I’m telling you.
What’s the soil analysis?
Just getting in samples now.
Tsk, tsk, you’re slow.
Not at all, Thian replied, refusing to r
ise to his brother’s jibe. Just being cautious. This planet is occupied.
Hmmm, yes, that would advise some caution, I suppose. Five hundred and eighty years? That’s grabbed the xenos’ attention. And there was laughter in Rojer’s mental tone. Yes, that’s what Thian said.... How’d you arrive at that estimate? They want to know.
Forensic analysis of fragments of their sphere.
Pass that along, would you?
Thian flipped the file in a ’port to his brother’s position.
Hey, close shave, bro. So your planet’s off the colony list?
It’s occupied.
Well, this one isn’t. The ’Dinis can have it. All except this compound until we’ve scraped all the data we can from it. Those Hivers obviously didn’t do enough homework. But then, they had queens to waste, didn’t they?
Looks like.
’Deed it does. Send me your soil analyses when they’re ready, will you, bro? Blairik is doing comparisons. We’re moving to a more felicitous site ... to erect the Tower.
I’ll send on the samples. And with an image of himself giving Rojer a brotherly pat on the back, Thian disengaged.
He did not, however, resume his control of the probes.
“I would like to get down to Arcadia’s surface, Admiral Ashiant,” he said after a long, thoughtful pause.
“What?” Ashiant was astounded. “I don’t think I can allow that, Thian. You’re far too valuable to us...”
Thian held up his hand. “I’d run no risk, I assure you.” Then he turned to Grm and Weiman. “The queen kept on the Heinlein Base. Is she still ignoring the presence of Humans or ’Dini?”
“It has made no response at all,” Grm said, shaking its head.
Sam Weiman sighed. “I had the opportunity to transfer to the ... ah ... facility,” he said. “Stood as close to her as I am to you right now, sir. I have never been so completely ignored in my life.” He gave a droll grin on his moon face. “No one has ever had a reaction from her. There have been so many attempts at some form of communication. Every method has been tried: sound, color, every radio-wave band and electromagnetic frequency modulation. We don’t even know if she’s been aware of them.” He sighed again. “It is so terribly frustrating,” he added with considerable vehemence.
The Tower and the Hive Page 6
