Dirge

by Foster, Alan Dean;

  "Of course you do." As much was obvious to Yirghiz. "If your government is going to send its citizens to risk their lives on our behalf, it would be unreasonable not to expect the same from us. If the AAnn attack you, you'd want to be able to ask for our help."

  "It'll never happen." MacCunn was darkly assured. "The world council will never vote to send ships and personnel to help defend -" He started to say what was in his mind, and hastily substituted something else."- your kind."

  With their fixed exoskeleton the thranx were incapable of smiling. Nor were the relevant inflections detectable even to the more linguistically adept Yirghiz. It did not matter. The di-eint's response contained sufficient inherent sarcasm.

  "Bugs, you mean."

  MacCunn replied calmly. "I didn't say that."

  "You do not have to. It doesn't matter." The di-eint's antennae dipped and bobbed. "My government is prepared to leave the question of what degree of response your kind would provide should such a confrontation arise for future discussion. Our overriding concern is to assist you now."

  "Before the Pitar can weaken us to the point where we might be unable to effectively resist the incursions of the AAnn."

  "You may draw your own conclusions. The important thing is that you accept. And there is another reason."

  Yirghiz was growing impatient to return to the bridge. "What else?"

  "We happen to like you. Not all of my kind feel thusly, but a great many do. We do not like the Pitar. Not after what they have done, showing neither remorse nor repentance. But for an accident of biology it might have been a thranx world they despoiled. On a more informal level, I am compelled to say that I like you."

  Yirghiz's instinct was to reply in kind, but he found he could not. However convivial it might be, the creature seated opposite him was still simply too... buggy. That was not a rational, scientific response, he knew, but he could not help it. Like so many he knew, he remained a prisoner of his racial history, of memories of thousands of years of competing with far smaller distant cousins of the thranx for food, for space, for very existence.

  That would not prevent him, however, from accepting their help.

  "It's not within my purview to agree to so momentous a proposition." He gestured in the field marshal's direction. "No one on this ship or in the armada has that power. Believe me, I personally would be glad to accept all and any additional assistance, regardless of its origin."

  "Because you are going nowhere here," Haajujurprox told him.

  MacCunn bridled. "We are making progress. With each engagement the Pitar lose ships and fighters. We're wearing them down."

  "And they are wearing you down. We are quite capable of monitoring human opinion. In a war of attrition conducted in the vastness of interstellar space, it is the well-emplaced defenders who usually win. With the forces at your command you cannot break through their defenses."

  "Our land-based production plants and orbital assembly facilities are turning out newer and better ships and weapons." The field marshal's voice was tight.

  "As are the Pitar, who have the advantage of bringing them to bear sooner and more easily than you can. It is not unreasonable to imagine that they might succeed in out-producing you. They have the resources of two planets as highly developed as Earth operating in close proximity to one another, whereas your subsidiary colony worlds are widely scattered. The raw resources of not one but two extensive asteroid belts are theirs to draw upon. Your position here becomes less, not more, tenable over time."

  MacCunn swallowed hard. "Denigrating the efforts of the people you propose to help strikes me as a peculiar way to initiate an alliance."

  "Truth is not denigration," the elderly thranx countered. "Mathematics is not prejudiced and does not take sides." Glancing down, she consulted a delicate device strapped to the forepart of one truhand. "By this time your world council should have reached a decision on our offer. Our arrival here, you see, was timed to coincide with the very secret debate that has been taking place within your government for several of your weeks."

  MacCunn and Yirghiz exchanged a startled glance. The look was sufficient between friends to convey the awareness that neither man knew something relevant that he had neglected to tell the other.

  As if choreographed, both senior officers' private readers vibrated for attention. Removing the instruments, the two men read in silence. Despite herself, Haajujurprox was impatient to receive more than visual reactions from the humans.

  Sighing heavily, Yirghiz slipped his recorder back into its holster. "The actual communication was received before you set foot on this ship. It took the time we have spent talking to decode, recheck, and decode the recheck. If your skills in battle are as precise as the timing of your diplomacy, your help will be most welcome indeed."

  The di-eint interpreted this promptly. "Then your government is agreed?"

  MacCunn nodded briskly. "Any help you want to give us is hereby accepted. Details of a full alliance will continue to be discussed and debated. But in the interim, if you should happen to extirpate a Pitarian warship or two, the people of Earth and its colonies will be pleased not to look too deeply into questions of your motivation."

  "Excellent." Haajujurprox started to rise, began to tremble, and slumped back toward the cushions. Her twin escorts rushed to assist the elderly di-eint.

  Without realizing it, Yirghiz had started to do the same. It had been an instinctive gesture. Now he stood more slowly, watching as the two younger thranx assisted their elder in rising. One helped to support her while the other carefully removed the line of cushions from beneath the aged abdomen so that she would not have to step awkwardly over them.

  Why had he started to go to her aid? The admiral found himself caught in a welter of unexpected emotions. Intelligent beyond doubt she was, but the emissary was still virtually a giant bug. He didn't like bugs. But he found that he was very much starting to like this one.

  Not a bug, he told himself firmly. It's only the shape. Ignore the shape - or learn to see it differently.

  MacCunn was speaking softly in his usual, clipped, formal tones. "We will work with the commanders of your vessels to include them in our general battle schematics. We certainly don't expect them to lead any thrusts, but their status as active reserves will be most welcome."

  The di-eint rotated her head to a greater extreme than any human could manage in order to look back at the senior officer. "Don't you trust us, Field Marshal MacCunn? Or do you need to first see dead thranx bodies floating in space to be convinced of our earnestness in this matter?" When he started to reply, she raised a hand to forestall him. Yirghiz was quietly amazed to see him comply.

  "No, do not try to explain yourself. Though I have not experienced them personally, I am well aware of human feelings toward my kind. You cannot help it. In this and many other ways you are still prisoners of your primitive past. Given time and effort, we hope to be able to effect changes in that."

  Yirghiz stepped into the uncomfortable breach. "Blowing a few Pitarian warships out of existence would be an excellent way to begin."

  Haajujurprox gesticulated acknowledgment, not pausing to wonder if any of the humans in the room understood the meaning of the gesture.

  Flanking their superiors, the two thranx and four human soldiers formed up an escort. The meeting concluded, they found themselves eying each other very differently than they had been when it had first commenced. The thranx studied the flexible, flowing movements of their bipedal counterparts with bemused curiosity, while the human soldiers could not keep themselves from inhaling deeply and repeatedly. Of such small exchanges are great events fashioned.

  MacCunn was constitutionally unable to keep himself from discussing strategy, even during what should have been a walk marked by casual conversation.

  "Your task force will complement our ships nicely in sector twelve. We've been weaker there than I would like for nearly two months now."

  "Task force?" Haajujurprox adjusted her va
lentine-shaped head to peer up at him.

  "The one dreadnought you brought and the escorts that are accompanying it." MacCunn smiled, wondering if the venerable thranx knew the meaning and intent of the expression.

  "My dear Field Marshal MacCunn, cl!rrik, that is no task force. That is our scouting force. Subsequent to the final approval by your full government of the terms of our mutual arrangement, a substantial portion of the Hive fleet will arrive here within days. Less what is required to maintain the adequate defense of Hivehom, Trix, Willow-Wane, and Calm Nursery, of course. While the AAnn wait in hopes of seeing you weakened, they would be more eager still to take advantage of any perceived frailty on our part."

  MacCunn looked at Yirghiz, who was silent but visibly elated. "Then we can expect the assistance of a few more of your warships?"

  "It is recognized that if the defense of Pitar is to be broken, any adjustment in the balance of forces must be significant. Otherwise the effort would be wasted."

  The two senior officers indicated their agreement, reiterating that the blockading force would be grateful for any help, no matter how limited or unobtrusive.

  Six days later two hundred and sixty-five thranx warships dropped out of space-plus around Pitar's sun.

  Chapter 20

  I he arrival of the unexpectedly impressive thranx forces was met with a unanimity of cheers and a spontaneous outpouring of warmth among the humans who crewed the ships charged with enforcing the quarantine around the defiant and venomous Dominion. The reaction on Earth and throughout the colonies was less homogenous. While delighted at the offer of assistance, a good deal of suspicion was voiced over the terms of the proposal.

  The opposition to any formal agreement was led by the highly visible and equally vocal xenophobe faction. Dubious at having to deal on equal terms with giant bugs, the prospect of fighting alongside them and possibly at some point in the future for them drove the most extreme groups into paroxysms of fury. Consequent outbreaks of violence protesting the agreement, while distressing, were effectively contained by the world government. Despite vigorous attempts to do so, these could unfortunately not be concealed from an active and perceptive media. Agitated debate over the virtues and drawbacks of the understanding continued even as thranx warships prepared to go into battle alongside their human counterparts.

  The reaction among the thranx was equally divisive, but deliberated with considerably more restraint. In the end the desires and self-serving rationales of both governments prevailed: Thranx warships would fight alongside those of the armada.

  It was a moment in time fraught with significance when the order for the first combined attack was transmitted. Several

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  dozen ships began to probe forward on a wide astronomical front, their movement and positioning coordinated by hastily forged closed communications. Throughout the armada tension ran higher than usual. No one knew how well human forces would operate alongside those of the insectoids.

  Activity in normal space exposed ships and personnel to counterattack by Pitarian forces. It was impossible to conduct any kind of fight in space-plus, a realm of nonconforming physics where the customary definitions of matter and energy no longer held sway. But on low drive power, conventional weapons could wreak havoc in minutes. Ships could be damaged or destroyed, and thousands could lose their lives. Advancing to within accurate bombardment range of a target world in space-plus was of course impossible. The stress of emerging into a planet's gravitational field, even at a distance where its effects would be greatly reduced, would impact on the sensitive alignment of a ship's KK-drive field and tear it apart as soon as it emerged back into normal space.

  So the commingled fleets advanced as rapidly as was feasible, knowing that the Pitar could not shift ships to meet them any faster than they were already traveling. Computation systems stood ready to orchestrate flights of explosives and high-energy weapons. All personnel were at battle stations and on full alert. Over the previous year many such confrontations had riven space in the vicinity of the twin asteroid belts and the innermost gas giant. Everyone hoped this battle would be different than those.

  Detecting the incoming ships, the Pitar promptly allocated a force large enough to counter the incursion. As soon as far-ranging instrumentation descried this enemy activity, another human-thranx battle group began to move inward from its position on the far side of the Dominion's sun. As before, their location and movement was noted by the Pitar, and as previously, a sufficiency of warships was reassigned to intercept them.

  Within an hour the entire armada, augmented by the substantial thranx force, was in motion, as were all available

  Pitarian craft. It was very much like a gigantic chess game, one that involved hundreds of pieces of varying strength engaged in simultaneous motion on an interplanetary scale. Aboard the Tamerlane as aboard every ship in the armada, there was hope that the final and deciding battle might at last be at hand: that with the addition of the thranx force the blockaders might at last have enough strength to overwhelm and beat their way past the Pitarian defenders.

  It was not to be.

  Watching the constantly shifting readout within the flagship's main battle tridee, the lowliest ensign saw what was happening at the same time as general officers like Yirghiz and MacCunn. At first no one could believe it. The ship's battle instrumentation, which automatically compensated for far punier human senses, was quickly checked for error. Nothing was malfunctioning, and subsidiary instruments confirmed the accuracy of all primary modalities.

  Pinpoints of light were rising from the vicinity of both the Twin Worlds. Ascending and racing outward along the appropriate vectors to support existing Pitarian defenders. They were prodigal in number, not staggeringly so but still disappointingly abundant. The Pitar had been holding a substantial number of perfectly good ships in reserve, not employing them even for routine patrol or to help rotate ships and crews. Designed to furnish an entirely unsuspected line of defense for the Twin Worlds, their masters were now forced to use them in order to counter the unexpectedly augmented human attack.

  MacCunn, for one, did not have to wait for the official report from remote sensors. The moving pinpoints were difficult to count, but he could estimate.

  The offensive was called off before any ships could engage. There was no point in risking personnel and material to fight to yet another draw. The efficacy of Pitarian ships, weapons, and tactics had already been amply demonstrated. No one wished to risk thousands of lives to secure a reiteration of what was already well known.

  No one died in the aborted sortie, but the sense of disappointment that spread throughout the armada was crushing. Expecting a decisive battle, the ships had instead withdrawn without either side having loosed a single missile or fired so much as a ranging shot. The thranx had broken the status quo, and the Pitar had promptly reestablished it. The thranx commander, a di-eint himself, was apologetic. They would try harder next time. But no more thranx vessels could be expected to participate than those that had already arrived. The rest of the thranx fleet was obliged to remain on home station to defend their respective worlds.

  The government of Earth and its colonies tried to minimize the aftermath. No ships had been lost in the most recent engagement, and not a single soldier had died. Furthermore, the clandestine strength of the Pitar had been exposed. They had been forced to reveal the extent of their reserves. As a military argument it was a good one, but it carried little weight with the discontented people of Earth and associated worlds.

  Besides, what proof was there that the Pitar were not concealing still additional martial capacity? That the next assault, however greatly enhanced, would not be met by a similar counteraction? What if the Pitar had yet to divulge their full strength? These were questions a cautious military could not answer. The reaction on Earth and elsewhere, once more led by the xenophobes, was not salutary.

  To break the deadlock around the Twin Worlds of the Pitarian Dominion a radical imp
rovement in weaponry or change in tactics was obviously required. But what?

  The one development no one expected was that both would occur simultaneously and as a consequence of the same research, or that it would be the thranx who first hit upon the singular idea.

  In addition to the cultural and diplomatic exchanges that had permeated relations between human and thranx since the time of first contact, there was a quiet but continuous exchange of scientific information. Discovering that the human interstellar KK-drive was more efficient than their own, the thranx promptly adopted and incorporated into their own vessels specific aspects of its design. Human engineers and researchers also benefited from the results of thousands of years of thranx research. Largely ignored and overlooked by their respective governments, as well as by the fanatics on both sides, the scientists went about their work in stolid, systematic fashion. Which is to say they mutually engaged in the monotonous, boring, dull, everyday work that constitutes the vast bulk of what ordinary people think of as science.

  Space-minus communications delivered information and accepted cautious propositions. Arcane theories were debated and hypotheses scrutinized. Good things arose from these communications, though nothing very dramatic.

  Until a small group of thranx physicists decided to broach an idea to a visiting party of human colleagues.

  The engineers were on Hivehom to explain certain aspects of KK-drive manufacture to their thranx counterparts. They were practical men and women who were far more interested in application than theory. As such, they were bemused by the physicists' insistence; for that matter, so were their thranx counterparts.

  It was left to a senior member of the local research group to make the presentation. Humans and thranx alike had gathered to hear him in the casual surroundings of an underground esplanade. Organized water spilled in a systematic, tranquil manner from the ceiling, suffusing the air with the music of its falling while saturating the circumscribed atmosphere of the sizable chamber with additional moisture. The thranx delighted in its feel. Wearing as little as mutual modesty would allow, their human visitors tolerated the incredible humidity as best they were able, having long since learned that working with the thranx on one of their worlds meant sweating not just while at work, but every minute of every day.