by Paul Chafe
We swim the same sea as the sharks.
— Dolphin saying
Curvy whistled to herself as she tapped on her console, the manipulator tentacles of her dolphin hands snaking expertly over the keys in response to brain impulses picked up by tiny coils of superconductor in the control cap she wore. Zwweee(click)wurrrtrrrtrrr answered her from across the dolphin tank, and Curvy chirped happily at the reminder that she was no longer alone. Dolphins prefer to be gregarious, and she had spent too much time with only human company.
Few dolphins chose to work with the UNF for just that reason. It was one thing to be on a dive team for some human mining corporation in Earth's oceans, to work and play with friends and family, and listen to the ancient rhythms of the ocean. It was something else to leave the oceans for the uncomfortable environment of space, to be reliant on another species even for food. It was unnatural, but it was necessary. If the cetacean world was to have any influence over their own oceans, some dolphins had to work with the humans, even to the extent of helping them fight their wars.
And so she was on the UNSN battleship Crusader, at the core of a fleet five hundred strong, plotting strategy as they boosted for the world the kzinti called W'kkai. She punched execute to run her strategic matrix, a complex condensation of a hundred thousand factors that might affect the battle to come. She had carefully designed it to winnow out the courses of action required to optimize the chances of getting the desired results. Not her desired results, which would have seen peace between Man and Kzin; that option had been foreclosed. Secretary Ravalla had come to power faster than she had thought possible, or to be more technically accurate, at a date ahead of 97.3% of the range of possible dates computed by her previous calculations, although he had only achieved a minority government (33.4% probable and thus not much of a surprise). Given that combination of outcomes it was highly probable (85%) that Ravalla would move immediately to war, but the total probability of all three events was less than one percent. Events had landed on an outlier, and the results were disastrous. War was in progress, and the best course of action now was to ensure that the UN won it, quickly. If the Patriarchy reacted as her models predicted, a long war would lead to an inevitable escalation that would see planets razed, Earth most certainly included. That was an outcome to be avoided at any cost.
Of course a short war also had a high probability of that outcome. Curvy dove to snap up a trout while her simulation ran. The prognostics weren't positive, but life continued. Zwweee(click)wurrrrtrrrtrrr dove with her and for a moment they swam in synchrony, bathed in the flickering light from one tank wall where the entire fleet's com channels were displayed, so the dolphins could follow battles in real time. She ducked under him and rubbed her beak and melon along his belly, an affectionate tease. He rolled and chirped and then they leapt, as well as they could in the not-quite-big enough tank. Later they would mate; for now there was the simulation run.
The computer beeped and flashed, and together they went to look at the results. Battle tactics in three dimensions. The humans had an overwhelming fleet compared to what intelligence said they would find at W'kkai. It would be a straightforward battle; their losses would be light. The real battle would come later, when the kzinti set out to take back what was theirs. The Patriarchy was big, exactly how big nobody knew for sure. She had models, with upper and lower bounds, and the alarming thing was that the upper bounds were so much larger than the humans were willing to believe. The elements of kzinti social structure were an important factor, incompletely known. Perhaps it had been a mistake to influence events to allow Dr. Brasseur to be sent to Kzinhome. The a priori probability of his death had been low, and the social data he might have come home with would have greatly enhanced the models. Instead, they had lost not only the additional data he would have brought back, but his insight into the data they already had.
Curvy trilled, concerned at what she saw on her screen. Zwweee(click)wurrrrtrrrtrrr clicked in concurrence, and dumped his own data to her screen. Victory at W'kkai was not an issue. The consequences of that victory were less encouraging. The best possible solution was to target Kzinhome itself as soon as possible. If that could be done successfully there was a high probability the remainder of the Patriarchy would fall apart without offering serious threat to Earth. Kzinhome was heavily defended though. Her first campaign concept had involved attacking it almost immediately, but that plan revolved around the unprecedented combat power of the Wunderlanders' Treatymaker, and that was now out of action for the foreseeable future.
And of course it was beyond the capacity of the Ravalla faction to delay their attack until the human forces were fully ready. They would forfeit their political position if they reneged on their aggressive rhetoric now that they were in power. The negative outcome spaces downstream of that position seemed to have no impact on the faction's decision making. The best they could do now was attack the Patriarchy's weaker worlds, gain experience for the human fleet, and hopefully draw some of the protection away from Kzinhome itself. It was not the most optimal plan she could imagine, it was simply the best one under the circumstances.
Her consort slid beneath and rubbed her belly with amorous insistence, and concern dissolved in the mating flash. They dove together with bodies intertwined, losing the cares of known space in love play for a few blissful minutes. She wriggled as he entered her, delighted at his touch, his company, his essential dolphin-ness. She had forgotten how much she missed her own kind. Dolphins had their priorities straight. If humans would only spend more time mating and less time scheming, the galaxy would be a better place.
You will find nothing there but the dark heart of the jungle, and if you somehow survive its beasts and fevers, it will seize you, it will seduce you, and you will never return.
— Major Wes Wrightson, Gambia, 1818
The high noon glare of 61 Ursae Majoris baked rivers of sweat from Quacy Tskombe's brow. He wiped it away and examined the stone circle of a campfire and the inukshuk beside it. There were scattered bones nearby, remnants of one of the graceful zianya herbivores that populated the rolling savannah. In tracking Ayla they had found six campsites with inukshuk scattered across the grasslands between the mountains and the jungle. It was Far Hunter who read the land and divined the direction the fugitives had most likely taken in their flight, but it was Trina who had found all six campsites. Certainly they had missed many more, but they had the trail, and that was what mattered. Trina's formidible luck was no longer something he questioned but something he counted on. When she and Far Hunter agreed on the direction to travel he took their advice without question. His own tracking skills were unnecessary, and, though he didn't like to admit it, far outclassed. Even he could have found this campsite, though. A grass fire had swept through the area a season ago, leaving a large charred circle easily visible from the air, a logical place to look for a campsite. Ayla's cook fire must have gotten out of control.
He looked up to the forbidding green wall where the jungle began, just a few hundred meters away now. The trail they had followed pointed straight to the jungle, and he remembered T'suuz telling Pouncer that they would find shelter in there.
“Far Hunter!” he called. The kzin was examining the ground on the other side of the gravcar. “What is a czrav?”
“A jungle primitive. Even the savannah cvari see them rarely. Why do you ask?”
“Pouncer said he would find shelter there.” It was really T'suuz who had, but Tskombe had learned that Far Hunter would not believe him if he said T'suuz said anything of import. Kzinretti were not supposed to be that smart.
“Poor shelter there. The czrav are dangerous, and they are not even the greatest of the jungle's dangers. I have hunted the jungle verge. Few who go deeper ever come out again.”
“It seems that's where they went.”
Far Hunter furled his ears. “My hope is dwindling, Tskombe-kz'eerkti, for your cause and for mine.”
“Hey, look at this!” Trina called, inter
rupting.
Human and kzin went to look and found long scars in the center of the burned area where soil had melted into dark glass.
Tskombe pursed his lips. “Laser beams.” Ayla's cooking fire hadn't been the cause of the burned area after all.
“Hrrrr. The Tzaatz found them and attacked with energy weapons. They have no honor.”
Tskombe looked at him. “I've seen kzinti kill each other with more than hand weapons.”
Far Hunter snarled, showing his fangs. “Of course, but not in a pride war, or a duel. There are traditions.”
Tskombe nodded, feeling sick at heart. Three runners on foot, against at least a gravcar with heavy weapons. The chances of survival were not good. They followed the slashes of glassified dirt to the jungle verge, found an area where trees had ruptured when the beams flash boiled the moisture in their boles. Splinters of wood had sprayed like grenade shrapnel to imbed themselves in nearby trunks. The damage continued some little distance into the treeline, enough to suggest that perhaps the runners had gotten away. On the other hand, there was no wreckage in the area, no sign they had fought back successfully. Tskombe resolved to keep looking anyway. He had not come so far to give up, even if Ayla was already dead.
Far Hunter was sniffing the ground farther into the forest. “There is no sign of a trail.”
“There wouldn't be, at this distance in time. We haven't found anything we can track yet.”
“Hrrrr.”
Trina moved deeper into the woods and Far Hunter looked up sharply. “Do not go further.”
She turned around. “Why not?”
Far Hunter bared his fangs. “The jungle is a dangerous place. You can be lost within a few paces, and prey within a few more.”
She stepped back, looking worried. Tskombe turned back to the open savannah. “I think we should search from the gravcar. We can cover more ground that way.”
Far Hunter twitched his whiskers. “Agreed.”
It was harder than he thought it would be. From the air the jungle was a vast, green maze split by the muddy, serpentine coils of the river. It was impenetrable from below, its secrets well hidden from above. After the second day of searching from the gravcar they lost Black Saber when Contradictory landed a contract to take a cargo to a world called Reessliu. It was a round trip contract, by way of Ktzaa'Whrloo, so at least the freerunner would be back, eventually. Black Saber's instruments were no help in a ground search conducted beneath jungle canopy, but once Tskombe found Ayla he wanted to take her back immediately. But that is not what's going to happen. There were no guarantees. Night Pilot gave them an estimated time of return, and that was all. Black Saber went where her cargos took her, and the Patriarchy was a big place. Getting back to human space has now become as large a problem as finding Ayla.
Time to think about that later. And as later became now he continued to push the problem back. The days grew noticeably shorter and the first rains of the wet season began without a single clue emerging from their search. At night they camped on the relative safety of the savannah, by day they flew down the newly swollen tributaries of the river. It was a search strategy dictated as much by necessity as planning. Far Hunter's theory was that, if the fugitives had survived, they would have followed the river downstream. That theory meshed conveniently with the fact that the river banks were the only part of the jungle floor they could actually see. There were cool, clear pools in the smaller tributaries, inviting in the heat of the day, but Far Hunter warned them against entering still water.
They found nothing, and continued to find nothing. One day after another fruitless search it occurred to Tskombe that he'd lost track of time. It had been what, a month? Two months? They returned to their camp on the savannah to eat a zianya that Far Hunter had caught. Trina and Tskombe roasted their portion on the same cook fire that Ayla had set, a season or more ago. It made him feel connected to her, as though she were alive. And she is alive, I have to believe that. The jungle was large, the search could take years. Patience was the key.
And still the next day, in his heart he believed that today might be the day they found her. It was not, nor was the next. The Hunter's Moon made its way through its phases, chased around the sky by the smaller, faster Traveler's Moon. The wet season was well upon them. Every day brought larger storms, and the languid river began to run faster, hastened by its myriad overflowing tributaries. The danger of standing water was replaced by the hazard of its powerful current, but there was less drive to swim. The constant rainfall was cooling the parched jungle, and the desiccated vegetation began to swell and blossom. Tskombe found himself changing too, adapting to the environment. He could recognize hidden threats, in the fangthorn and the trapvine, he knew the tracks of the alyyzya and, though he'd never seen one, the fearsome grlor. His dark complexion was burnt almost black by the relentless sun. Trina had changed too. He had already seen the little girl behind the abused adolescent emerge in her time on Tiamat, and now the little girl was growing, maturing into a confident young woman. Unlike him she wasn't adapting to the jungle, her luck forbade it. If she needed to drink there was a clean stream nearby, if she wandered too close to a trapvine it turned out to have already caught its dinner. Her confidence was the misplaced confidence of youth, that nothing bad could happen to her. Except her case it turned out to be correct.
Her luck was failing though, in the search for Ayla. But good luck for her is not good luck for me. Perhaps her fates have arranged for her to have this interlude, to heal away from the humans who have done her the most harm, kept safe by good fortune alone in this lethal environment. Certainly Far Hunter was good for her. The kzin had taken an almost paternal interest in her, as a human might in a lost raccoon baby. He teased her gently and taught her little hunting tricks. She teased him back and learned to groom his pelt, a fair exchange. It reminded Tskombe of the earlier relationship she had forged with Curvy. And where is Curvy now? Earth, human space, Muro Ravalla and the threat of war, all these things seemed impossibly distant, completely unconnected with the daily round of their life. Even Ayla seemed distant, despite being the focus of his quest. Only in his dreams did she seem real, calling out to him, urging him not to give up on her. By day there was only the jungle, vast and alive, taunting him with its impenetrable secrets.
On their sixtieth or six hundredth flight Trina was flying under Far Hunter's tutelage, another round of the life lessons he insisted on teaching her. Tskombe kept his attention focused down, swept his eyes up and down the wide river, as the triple canopy unrolled beneath them, looking for something, anything.
And there was something. He gestured down, and Trina slid the gravcar down into the burned-over valley he'd spotted and landed on a thin layer of grass growing over still-charred ground. The jungle air was thick and humid, full of the scent of life. The morning had seen marching thunderstorms flood rain from the sky while fist sized hailstones rang off the gravcar's canopy like strakkaker fire, but now 61 Ursae Majoris burned down mercilessly from a clear blue sky, and the soaked ground steamed tendrils of water vapor up to join the next storm cycle. Tskombe climbed out, already drenched in sweat, and looked around at the sparse forest of burnt trunks.
Far Hunter leapt out. “What have you seen?”
“Just that this area is burnt over.”
“You suspect more laser fire?”
“Or a cook fire. What else do we have to go on?”
Far Hunter knelt to examine the soil. “This fire is too old, it happened several years ago at least.” He pointed. “See how the shoots have pushed through the charred layer and grown? The tree trunks have faded to gray.”
Tskombe nodded, sighing heavily. “Another false alarm. Where do we go from here?”
The kzin fanned his ears up as he surveyed the landscape. “Not so fast. It is still likely they would be following the river. Jungle navigation is hard. This tributary branch would have been their easiest choice. This burned area is easy going too. They may have come through here an
d left sign that has lasted in the char.”
“That way.” Trina pointed downslope from the cockpit. “I think that way.” Tskombe nodded and they got back in. Far Hunter took over the controls, flying slowly a few meters up, looking for clues. Tskombe had them fly through the center of the burned area, hoping to find stones arranged to hold a cook fire, or better yet another inukshuk, but there was nothing. A rushing stream ran through the center of the valley, running brisk with the morning's rain. Tskombe felt a mounting despair, for the first time since they had started the jungle hunt.
“We're searching for a needle in a haystack.”
Haystack translated as grass pile in the Hero's Tongue, and Far Hunter looked puzzled. “Why would you expect to find a needle there?”
“Well, you wouldn't expect to, that's the point.”
“Then why look?”
“Well, because you need to find the needle.”
