Dirge

by Alan Dean Foster

  “Kil!!ck, that does not surprise us. The AAnn are a treacherous and dangerous people. They will kill when it is to their advantage and retreat in a confusion of apologies when strongly confronted. That is what makes dealing with them so infuriating. One moment they will be happy to trade keenly but fairly, the next they will ambush and destroy. If caught out, they are masters of repentance. In the absence of surety one must always be on guard against them.”

  Lee considered thoughtfully. “You’re not the first to hint that the AAnn might be responsible for this. Until the puzzle is solved, everyone is suspect. Even apostate humans.”

  That startled the thranx researcher. “You would suspect your own kind of such an atrocity?”

  “Such things have happened in the past. In the First and Second Dark Ages.”

  “But why? What possible motivation could there be?”

  As his legs began to cramp, Lee settled himself into a more comfortable seated position. “You spoke of the xenophobes among your own kind who don’t want to have more than the most minimal contact with us. Ours are more zealous than yours. There are fanatics who’ll do anything to keep our respective species from growing closer together.” With a sweep of one arm he gestured at the devastation that surrounded them. “It’s not out of the realm of possibility that they might resort to measures as extreme as this so they could blame the result on the thranx, or on nonhumans in general.”

  “Then you have motivation.” Although he spoke the words, the possibility that the scenario the human had just described might actually have taken place remained barely conceivable to Reldmuurtinjak.

  “Motivation, yes, but seemingly insupportable means of acting on it.” Lee shifted his backside against the hard floor. “Though powerful, with many undeclared supporters, it’s hard to envision how the xenophobes could have mustered sufficient military-style strength to carry out such a devastating assault on another world—much less erase any and all evidence of their participation. What happened to the Amazon hive was one thing. Obliterating the population of an entire colony is something else again. If such was actually the case it would answer one question, though.”

  “Which one?” Reldmuurtinjak executed a gesture of ongoing confusion. “There are so many.”

  Lee was not sophisticated enough to catch the delicate hint of humor. “How the invaders were able to achieve such complete surprise. Battalions of arriving fellow humans, even heavily armed fellow humans, would not be questioned. Not until it was too late. They could have spread themselves throughout the colony before attacking simultaneously at multiple points in response to some prearranged signal. Evidence of their perfidy could have been gathered up and destroyed after the fact.” His tone was flat. “As I said, in the absence of the guilty, everyone is suspect. Even ourselves.”

  “I am glad to know that we are not alone.” The thranx had a well-developed sense of sarcasm. “Better your people should look to the AAnn, press them on their absence from the collective effort to unearth explanations, and watch the skies of your other colonies.”

  “Everyone from New Riviera to Cachalot is on alert,” Lee assured the bug. “Every arriving ship has to undergo checks and quarantine that would have been unthinkable just a couple of years ago. It’s a monumental inconvenience, but most people understand the need.”

  “Inconvenience is better than genocide.” Examining a torn length of the familiar white human writing material, Reldmuurtinjak patiently set it in one of the three piles that were rising slowly beside him. “What have you heard from the central coordinating authority? Is there any news?”

  Leaning back against a melted mass of plastic that had once been a storage locker, Lee sighed resignedly. They were all tired from their fruitless researches. Arriving in orbit around Treetrunk, everyone had been flush with energy and enthusiasm, each man and woman in his complement certain they would be the one to find the key that would unlock the mystery of the colony’s destruction. As the days wore on and became weeks, then months, nascent eagerness gave way to uncertainty, then to resignation, and lastly to a kind of professional ennui. No one expected the next building, the next box, the next electronic file, to provide anything more informative than the routine details of everyday life leading up to the disaster. He wondered if the thranx ran a similar gauntlet of discouraging emotion. If so, they did not show it—at least, not in any fashion a watching, wondering human could decipher.

  “No,” he replied. “Not a thing. I heard that a Quillp team working east of Chagos Downs thought they’d stumbled onto the wreckage of a downed nonhuman shuttle, but it turned out to be a privately registered aircraft. Strictly suborbital. Hundred percent human design and manufacture.” In response to the unasked corollary he added, “No evidence of arms or armament was found in its vicinity, so it must have been local.”

  Reldmuurtinjak was intrigued. “Among my kind individuals do not have access to their own shuttlecraft. There are private suborbital vehicles capable of very high-speed flight, but nothing that is competent for extraatmospheric travel. No individual entity smaller than a hive operates its own flights into orbit.”

  “In that we are different,” Lee explained. “Among my kind large nongovernmental organizations engaged in trade and commerce often operate their own vessels, which are naturally equipped with proprietary shuttles. There are also certain very wealthy individuals who have access to privately owned and operated ships, even starships, together with their associated shuttlecraft. It’s not common, but it’s not unheard of, either. That’s the most likely explanation for what the Quillp found. Remember what I told you earlier about the possibility of fanatic human xenophobes mounting their own attack on the settlements. The first step in plotting something like that would be to obtain adequate untraceable interstellar transportation. That means acquiring not only starships, but also unused or unregistered landing capability.”

  Reldmuurtinjak indicated that he understood. “Nothing else, then?”

  Lee shook his head regretfully. “Only rumors that the money and resolve to keep our work here going is drying up. There are people on Earth and the colonies who want to concentrate the relevant research resources elsewhere.”

  “As in finding a species to blame for what took place.”

  Lee did not dispute the thranx’s observation. How could he, when he had alluded to as much himself? “I’m afraid so.”

  “Would that not play into the hands of renegade humans, if it is indeed such who are responsible?” Truhands and foot-hands worked through the mass of debris in a digital ballet.

  “Possibly. I hope those in charge keep that in mind when they make their final decision.” Raising up, he looked around the ravaged interior of the building. “Personally, I’d hate to see the last humans abandon this beautiful world without taking some answers away with them.”

  “You said ‘abandon.’ If I grasp the meaning correctly, your authorities are not planning a recolonization?”

  Lee eyed the insectoid in dismay before realizing that the thranx doubtless felt different about such matters, as they did about so many things. “It wouldn’t matter if they were or not. No human would settle here now, no matter how potentially profitable or life affirming. Despite its physical beauty, Treetrunk is seen as a world of death. Humans are…not always scientific in their response to such occurrences. For any of my kind to even think of resettling the Argus system, an incontrovertible explanation of what happened here must first be presented. Even then, I’m not sure very many people would want to live in the psychic vicinity of six hundred thousand dead.”

  “‘Psychic vicinity’? What is that? Is it near Weald?”

  Despite the serious turn of conversation, Lee had to smile. “It’s a state of mind, not an administrative boundary. Just take my word for it. No one will move here until they know for certain what annihilated their predecessors, and maybe not even then.”

  “Six hundred thousand dead.” Reldmuurtinjak repeated the figure in Low Thranx. To
Lee the melancholy mantra was a succession of ephemeral whisperings framed by an eloquence of musical whistles and clicks. It sounded even more foreboding in Low Thranx than it did in Terranglo. “All the dead have been accounted for, then?”

  “Less some twenty-two thousand presumed incinerated or otherwise utterly obliterated.” Along with the rest of his associates the young researcher had been compelled to deal with such deranged statistics daily, but that did not make them any easier to take, or the images they conjured up unbidden any simpler to banish. Six…hundred…thousand. An inconceivable number, an unreal chronicle of annihilation.

  As for the identities of the missing twenty-two thousand, they had been culled from the litany of the known deceased. There would be no burial for them, and their memorials would be anonymous. Lee had seen pictures, tridee recordings, drawings from life that had survived in schools and residences. The faces of the exterminated swam before him: wide-eyed, innocent, oblivious to the fate that was soon to befall them. The weight of the dead was crushing.

  All of a sudden he wanted out. He’d had enough. Let someone else be the hero. To an unknown more perspicacious than himself he bequeathed the honor of unraveling the great enigma. Climbing to his feet, he regarded the industrious, methodical thranx without envy.

  “That’s it. I’ve done my share here. I’m going to put in for transfer. I can’t take this anymore.” Focusing on the alien helped him to avoid looking at the surrounding desolation, kept him from hearing the screams of the dying or envisioning their helpless, terrified faces.

  Reldmuurtinjak looked up from his work, his valentine-shaped head facing that of the taller human squarely. In the subdued light that filtered into the depression between floors, his blue-green exoskeleton shone dully. “Psychic vicinity beginning to affect you?”

  “Something like that.” Glancing around to see if any of his colleagues were watching, he lowered his voice. “I hope it’s one of your kind that finds the answer. I hope it’s a thranx.”

  Reldmuurtinjak gestured to express curiosity, even though he knew the human would in all probability not be familiar enough with thranx body language to appreciate the sensitivity of the response.

  “Why? What difference does it make to the ultimate resolution?”

  “Because I don’t want to think that your people are responsible. Not even a group of fanatics. Because I enjoy talking with you and others of your kind. Because unlike some of my uncertain, suspicious colleagues and friends and relatives back home I want to see that relationship deepen.” Reaching out, he extended a hand, palm downward and fingers slightly apart, toward the insectoid’s smooth, shiny skull. “Because I like you.”

  Twisting his inflexible upper body around as much as he was able, Reldmuurtinjak dipped his head forward until both antennae made contact with the human’s hand. It was a gesture of greeting and farewell that was becoming more common among mammalian and insectoid acquaintances, one that took into account humankind’s regrettable lack of a flexible cerebral sensing mechanism. Smiling, Lee turned and moved to rejoin his friends.

  Reldmuurtinjak regarded him for a moment longer, then returned to his work. It was as monotonous, boring, and unrewarding as ever—but without pausing to consider the reasons, he found that he was feeling a little better about it.

  10

  As starships went, the battered, downsized craft that stumbled inelegantly out of space-plus in the vicinity of Argus VII was singularly unimpressive. The parabolic fan that promulgated its KK-type drive field was inefficiently aligned and indicative of low-grade manufacture. Further proof that the vessel was the product of a struggling as opposed to a surging technology could be found in the design and execution of the main body. Any ship of human, thranx, or AAnn fabrication was superior.

  But it was no derelict. It moved, and it was guided by its builders, who took what pride they could in a vessel that represented the pinnacle of their own meager science. All ships might not be equal, nor their engineering, but the crew of the odd little craft took pride in their species and its limited yet very real accomplishments.

  The Unop-Patha were not well known. They occupied a single system whose sun they called Unatha, after the Great Being they traditionally believed had given birth to the first of their kind. Ill equipped for long-range exploring, they kept close to home and sent out no more than a couple of ships at a time to maintain contact and relations with the far more vigorous sentients who occupied the same general area of the Arm. Humankind knew of them largely through the thranx, who had enjoyed contact with the species for well over a hundred years.

  The Unop-Patha were neither bold nor threatening, finding the maintenance of even formal relations with other intelligent races a strain on their limited resources. An easy conquest for an aggressive, expansionist people like the AAnn, their world and its scanty assets were not even worthy of the force required to take it over. Their very worthlessness assured their continued independence.

  Occasionally they sent one of their few space-plus-capable ships voyaging. Not in search of resources they were unable to exploit, or worlds they were incapable of settling, but because they were as curious as any developed people, albeit with a timorous curiosity. Treetrunk drew their attention not so much because of the tragedy that had befallen that human colony but because it lay within the limited range of the best of their vessels. They were aware of the catastrophe, of course. Every intelligence within that part of the Arm that had access to travel in space-plus or that had space-minus communications capabilities knew.

  Their arrival was immediately noted and their presence challenged by one of the two warships from Earth that remained in orbit around the planet. It took a few moments for the analysts on board the cruiser Shaka to convince themselves of the identity of the visitors. Setting aside initial impressions, they did not take the abused, apparently innocuous appearance of the much smaller vessel at face value. Everything and anything in Treetrunk’s vicinity had to be thoroughly checked out.

  As soon as ship-to-ship communications were established and the taxonomy of the Unop-Patha crew confirmed, the visitors were allowed to proceed as they wished. Travel to or visitation of the surface of Treetrunk was circumscribed but not forbidden, provided that any landing parties first obtained appropriate clearance from the military authorities on board the Shaka.

  The Unop-Patha accepted these restrictions obeisantly, having neither the desire nor the inclination to challenge the far more powerful human craft. Their own carried virtually no armament, its crew instead relying for defense on their transparent helplessness. Nevertheless, their presence and actions were closely monitored by sensitive instruments on both warships. Though nearly a year had passed since the destruction of Argus V, no one had forgotten that whatever had extirpated its population had accomplished the evil with the aid of complete surprise. Certainly the Unop-Patha and their pitiable vessel looked harmless, but they would nevertheless be watched carefully and scanned periodically until they left the system or reentered space-plus.

  The Unop-Patha did not avail themselves of the opportunity to descend to the surface of Treetrunk. They could not afford nor could their single shuttle craft tolerate more than a few such trips, and they chose not to expend one visiting a world whose horrors were well known. Instead, they contented themselves with dropping into as low an orbit as they could manage and making observations from altitude, even though they would have found the climate congenial and the gravity light.

  A week of such scrutiny proved sufficient to satisfy their modest scientific needs. Signaling their intention to move on, their polite appreciation was acknowledged by the officer on board the Shaka who had been given charge of such matters. A request to take measurements and readings throughout the remainder of the Argus system was promptly granted. The unassuming scientists on board the Unop-Patha craft were particularly interested in Argus VI, a gas giant of unusual composition. Though located in an orbit comparatively close to Treetrunk, its banded bulk did n
ot appear to exert any gravitational effect on that far more salubrious world, hinting at the absence of a solid core. While much material on the gaseous sphere and the rest of the Argus system was obtainable from human sources, the Unop-Patha humbly preferred to carry out their own investigations.

  Accelerating slowly away from Treetrunk, the Unop-Patha navigators plotted a course that would insert them into orbit around the sixth planet of Argus within a couple of days. As they moved off, tugged along by the greatly subdued glow of their minimally powered drive, they were traveling slowly enough to take readings on the two moons of Treetrunk. Rocky, airless, small, and astronomically undistinguished, these had been of no especial interest to the colonizing humans. Their dimensions, composition, and other relevant information had been automatically recorded, filed, and forgotten in the rush to settle the glamorous, accommodating world nearby.

  The Unop-Patha were not sophisticated, but they were thorough. Patience was a virtue of science that did not demand advanced technology to practice. So they slowed still further, to ensure that their specialists would be able to complete their readings.

  It was while passing the inner and smaller of the two chunks of rock that one of the three communications technicians, engaged in monitoring background noise, thought she might have detected an anomaly. Accorded only minimal attention by her colleagues at first, she persisted, finding the duration and bandwidth of the noise perplexing. Her perseverance finally engaged the interest of a superior, who while initially skeptical, soon found himself studying the relevant readouts through the twin lenses of puzzlement and surprise.

  The electromagnetic nonconformity was brought to the attention of the family group that was in command. After due debate and discussion it was decided to pause in the vicinity of the moon just long enough to investigate the abnormality before moving on to the sixth planet as planned. A cursory inquiry would cost little and would not involve the use of much time or equipment. The very low gravity of the moon meant that the coddled and sometimes troublesome shuttle craft would not have to be used. A pair of much smaller repair vehicles could be employed to explore the cratered surface.