Manta's Gift

by Timothy Zahn

  "I don't know that word."

  Raimey flipped his tails. "Forget it."

  He turned back to the floating food, trying to block the image of his mother's torn body out of his mind, awash in the sickening yellow of her own blood as the Nurturers tried futilely to save her life. But he couldn't.

  And even the kachtis had lost its taste.

  "Hey, Manta," Pranlo called from somewhere below him. "Come here."

  Taking a deep breath, Raimey flipped over and started down, spinning around as he did so to locate his friend. There he was, flapping against the slipstream wind at the bottom of the food clump. "What is it?" he asked as he pulled out of his dive beside him.

  "Grab yourself one of these things," Pranlo said. He flicked out his tongue and snagged an unfamiliar-looking blue-green cluster. "Come on, taste it."

  Frowning, Raimey located one and took a cautious bite. It was better even than kachtis. "What are they?" he asked.

  "Fin-bit if I know," Pranlo said. "Hey, Tigrallo. What are these things?"

  "They are called drokmur," Tigrallo said, drifting down to join them. "They aren't usually found this high up."

  "Oh, so this is the stuff you adults keep for yourselves," Pranlo said. "Can't say I blame you."

  "It's not a matter of keeping anything for anyone," Tigrallo said, sounding annoyed. "Midlings your age are simply not heavy enough to reach the areas where it usually grows."

  "Well, I suppose it's nice to have something to look forward to when we grow up," Pranlo said around a mouthful.

  Tigrallo made a chuckling sound in the back of his throat. "Among other things, yes."

  "Hey, guys," Drusni's voice wafted in from ahead of them. "You try these blue-green things yet?"

  "Yes," Raimey and Pranlo called back in unison.

  "Matter of fact, we saw them first," Pranlo added. "That means we've got first rights to them."

  "You go right ahead and try," Drusni called back.

  "Raimey?" a voice murmured in the back of Raimey's head.

  Raimey started, nearly biting his own tongue. "What?" he asked.

  It wasn't until the word was out of his mouth that he realized he'd answered in Qanskan tonals instead of English. He tried to switch languages—

  And to his rather startled chagrin, he found he couldn't. His brain, immersed so deeply for so long in Qanskan, was simply refusing to wrap itself around the proper words.

  For a moment he struggled, trying stubbornly to make his brain go there anyway. Then, abruptly, he changed his mind. Interrupting his meal had been their idea, not his. Why should he get his tails in a knot just to accommodate them?

  To the Deep with it. If they wanted to talk to him, they could jolly well translate for themselves.

  "Ask him how far down these drokmur usually grow," Faraday said.

  Raimey flicked his tails in annoyance. What was he, anyway, their private messenger boy?

  He grimaced. Actually, that was exactly what he was. Finding out about all these things was the reason he was here in the first place.

  "You said these things don't usually get up here," he said to Tigrallo "Where do they usually grow?"

  "They are usually found at Levels Three, Four, and Five," the Protector told him.

  "Levels Three, Four, and Five," Raimey repeated for the benefit of the eavesdroppers upstairs. "So usually only Youths, Breeders, and Protectors get to eat them?"

  "Yes," Tigrallo said. "Manta, I strongly urge you to leave this level and rejoin the rest of the herd. The Vuuka could appear at any time."

  "We'll go up when we're ready," Raimey said shortly, turning back to his meal. "You get that?" he added quietly.

  "Yes," Faraday said. "Thank you."

  "That's why I'm here," Raimey said with a touch of irony in his voice. Though whether Faraday and his buddies could even pick up such subtleties with their totally inadequate tonal recording equipment he didn't know. Probably not. Even full-blown sarcasm would probably be lost on them.

  He was savoring another bite of drokmur when the rest of it suddenly caught up with him.

  Faraday had asked what levels the drokmur grew on. But Raimey had never mentioned levels up till then.

  For that matter, he hadn't even mentioned the word drokmur.

  Which meant that Jupiter Prime wasn't just listening in on what he said right now. They were listening in on what everyone else around him was saying, too.

  He did another slow spin, searching the area carefully. It was one of their probes, of course. It had to be. But if there was one lurking around, he couldn't spot it.

  Which left only one other possibility.

  Like the kachtis before it, the drokmur suddenly lost its taste. What had Faraday said about this subvocalizer gadget they'd built into him, anyway? Raimey couldn't remember, exactly, but he knew he'd gotten the distinct impression that they could only pick up what he himself was saying.

  But had Faraday actually said that?

  He couldn't remember. And if he couldn't remember a specific statement, chances were suspiciously high that Faraday hadn't made one.

  So in other words, Raimey wasn't just their messenger boy. He was also their self-mobile espionage probe.

  And if they had audio capability, what else did they have?

  He slid his tongue across the rough insides of his teeth in frustration and annoyance. Still, he had to admit that it made sense. There were probably things their instruments could pick up and analyze that he himself couldn't.

  Though what those things might be he didn't know. Certainly Qanskan sight and hearing were a lot sharper than any human had guessed. But of course, no one had known that when they'd designed this experiment.

  Or had they?

  "Manta?" a voice said softly from his right.

  He rolled over and looked that direction. Drusni had come up beside him, and was gazing at him with an oddly anxious expression on her face. "It's okay," she said quietly. "I know it hurts. We've all lost family and friends. It's just the way things are."

  She stroked her fin across his. "But we're your friends. We'll help you get through it."

  Raimey took a deep breath. Clearly, she'd completely misinterpreted the reason for his sudden silence. Typical Drusni, really.

  Still, even amidst his annoyance at her, he had to admit that the unexpected expression of sympathy felt kind of good against the rawness of his anger and pain. "Thank you," he said quietly. "I'm—look, I know I pick on you a lot. But you and Pranlo—"

  "I know," she said, some of her normal cheer peeking through her seriousness. "But friends do that."

  She touched his fin again, only this time it was more like a playful slap than a stroke. "Come on," she said, flipping away from him. "Tigrallo's right—we've got to get out of here."

  "Okay," Raimey said. "But not until I clear out this drokmur first."

  "Not if I get there first," she called over her back. "Race you for it."

  Raimey rolled over and headed after her. And wondered at the odd tingling in his skin where her fin had touched his.

  "Well?" Faraday asked.

  Beach lifted his hands helplessly. "Near as I can tell, everything's working just fine," he said. "If there's a glitch in the subvocalizer, it's not showing up on any of the diagnostics. Maybe there's some interference from the life-support equipment."

  "Not a chance," McCollum insisted, peering closely at her own board. "Besides, it's geared down to barely a tenth its original output. What could it be doing now that it wouldn't have done before?"

  At the other end of the board, Sprenkle cleared his throat. "You're all assuming there's a technical problem with the equipment," he said. "Maybe there isn't."

  "Then why isn't he talking to us?" Beach demanded.

  "He is talking to us," Sprenkle pointed out. "He's just talking in Qanskan, not English."

  "That's right," Beach said in a tone of strained patience. Which means he's having trouble with his subvocalizer."

  "Why
does it mean that?" Sprenkle asked. "Maybe he's just more comfortable speaking in Qanskan now." He paused. "Or maybe he's forgotten how to speak English, even on a subvocalizer."

  Beach threw an odd look over his shoulder at Faraday. "Am I the only one in here who doesn't like the sound of that?" he asked.

  "Let's not panic just yet," Faraday advised. But he could feel the skin starting to crawl at the back of his neck, too. "Dr. Sprenkle, how could he forget how to speak English? I thought you said his memory and personality profile were holding steady through the cell replacement process."

  "They are," Sprenkle said. "Or at least, they were at the last check six weeks ago. But things do change, you know. Sometimes without much warning."

  There was a sound of footsteps from outside the door. Faraday turned to look—

  "Good morning," Hesse said, striding into the Contact Room and glancing around at each of them. "How are things going?"

  "Raimey can't or won't talk English to us," Beach said. "Hans thinks he may be going native."

  Hesse's jaw dropped a couple of millimeters. "Really," he said.

  "And welcome back," Faraday added. "How was Earth?"

  "Just fine, thank you," Hesse said absently, crossing over to stand behind Sprenkle. "What exactly does 'going native' mean here?"

  "Everette is exaggerating a bit," Sprenkle said, sending a slightly vexed look across at Beach. "It could just be that Raimey didn't feel like changing verbal gears in the middle of a conversation. He's never been the type to go out of his way to be helpful to others, after all, and he knows we can translate Qanskan tonals."

  "Or it could be the equipment," Hesse said, rubbing his cheek. "Where is he now?"

  "Down at the bottom of Level Two," Milligan said, looking over at the image from one of the spy probes. "He's feeding on some stuff we haven't seen before."

  "Interesting about that, too," McCollum added. "You'd think that as you move farther away from sunlight you'd get less variety in the vegetation, not more. But this is plant life that doesn't exist farther up."

  "Maybe it doesn't need sunlight," Hesse suggested, leaving Sprenkle and walking over to look at her board. "Maybe it lives on the equivalent of those hot sulfur vents in Earth's deep oceans."

  "Possibly," McCollum said. "The obvious candidate for that role being the radiation from Jupiter's core. Or the plants could have the kind of life cycle where their main growth occurs at the top of the atmosphere, after which they go dormant and sink farther down."

  "Well, stay on it," Hesse said, turning to Milligan. "What about the McCarthy setup? That's still functional, I presume?"

  Beach and McCollum exchanged a quick glance. "No way of knowing," Beach said. "There's no way to test it apart from a full activation."

  "Which I'd advise against doing right now," Sprenkle put in quickly. "There's no indication he knows anything yet."

  "I'm aware of that, thank you," Hesse said. "On the other hand, I also notice there's a lot more static than usual on the audio feed."

  "That's just because of the depth he's at," McCollum said.

  "Which is exactly my point," Hesse said tartly. "If we're starting to lose him before he's even at Level Three, there's a damn good chance he'll be out of reach well before he does know anything."

  He turned a glare on Faraday. "And if in the process he 'goes native,' whatever that means, we could have a serious problem on our hands."

  "So what are you suggesting?" Faraday asked calmly. "That we go ahead and tell him the real reason he's there?"

  Hesse looked back at Sprenkle. "You're the psychologist," he said, making the sentence an accusation. "You think he's in danger of forgetting he's human?"

  Sprenkle's lips puckered. "The problem is, of course, that he isn't human," he reminded Hesse. "At least, not physically."

  "But he still has his human memories and personality, right?" Hesse persisted.

  "So it appears," Sprenkle said. "But the physical body does affect mental and emotional states. How profound that effect is, or how profound it's going to become, there's simply no way of knowing."

  "If you want my vote, I say we tell him," Beach offered. "And the sooner the better. This lie's gone on long enough."

  "When Changeling becomes a democracy, I'll let you know," Hesse said icily. He hissed gently through his teeth, then shook his head. "No, we'll hold off a little longer. Let him get bigger, give him the kind of swimming range he'll need for the job. He'll still have access to Level One for quite a while—surely he'll bounce up there at least occasionally."

  He made an attempt at a smile. "So. Thank you all for your input."

  He turned and headed for the back corner where the coffee pot and tea samovar were simmering softly to themselves. Glancing at the techs to make sure their attention was back where it belonged, Faraday strolled over to join him.

  Hesse got in the first word. "Sorry," he muttered as he drew a mug of coffee. "I shouldn't have snapped at them like that."

  "No need to apologize," Faraday said. "At least, not to me. I take it things didn't go well on Earth?"

  Hesse's cheek muscles tightened visibly. "The understatement of the decade," he said. "The Five Hundred are becoming impatient with Changeling, Colonel, particularly the faction that pushed through the scheme in the first place. And I get the impression that impatience extends to the two of us personally."

  "It's been barely two years," Faraday pointed out, irritated in spite of himself. As far as he was concerned, the Five Hundred's veiled impatience had started midway through Day Two. It was pure political power-jockeying, and he for one was getting pretty tired of it. "Raimey's hardly past the Midling stage, for heaven's sake. If they couldn't figure out this was a long-term project, they shouldn't be allowed to cross the street by themselves."

  Hesse sighed. "I think it's more a matter of overall political pressure," he said. "There've been a lot of minor crises of confidence over the past few months, and I get the feeling there's been serious slippage in the Five Hundred's support. And not only on Mars and Luna, either."

  "And of course, the novelty of Changeling has long since worn off as far as the general public is concerned," Faraday pointed out.

  "As the novelty of such things always does," Hesse agreed sourly. "Especially when you've got something as exciting as Martian riots going on a few channels over."

  Faraday grimaced. "The whole station was following that one," he said. "Plenty of arguments going back and forth, too. I understand you were actually there?"

  Hesse shrugged. "I rode part of the way back here with Councilor Yakamura and got to sit in on a couple of sessions with his mediation team. I didn't do any of the talking, of course."

  "I was rather surprised that Yakamura didn't reveal Changeling's real purpose during the talks," Faraday said. "Or did he, and they simply suppressed it from the newsnets?"

  "No, he didn't say a word," Hesse said. "No point to it, really."

  "No point?" Faraday echoed, frowning.

  "Changeling is a long shot," Hesse said grimly. "Long shots are risky things to hang negotiations on."

  "Even so, I'd have thought it would help defuse the situation," Faraday insisted. "I mean, we are talking about the ultimate solution to the whole overcrowding problem. Presumably a lot cheaper than developing Titan and Janus, too."

  Hesse shook his head. "You're thinking long-term," he said. "The Martians aren't. All they can see is the immediate issue of the Council wanting to pour a ton of money into grinding out a few foothold bases on Saturn's moons instead of upgrading facilities on the colonies we already have."

  "I can't say as I entirely disagree with them, either," Faraday said. "Saturn's a mighty long way out."

  "So was Jupiter a generation ago," Hesse reminded him. "I dare say that the idea of putting colonies and stations here wasn't all that popular when it was first proposed."

  "It wasn't," Faraday had to concede. "I can remember when they first started building Jupiter Prime. From the way Ma
rs and Ceres howled, you'd have thought they were being left to wither on the vine. Especially since all the surveys proved that no one with half a functioning brain would want to live this far from Earth."

  "And now there are nearly half a million people living in the Jovian Sector," Hesse said wryly. "And in that same period Mars's population has more than tripled. So much for withering on the vine."

  "The Martians still have a point," Faraday said. "The farther out we go, the more expensive the real estate is to develop. The Five Hundred might well do better to expand the facilities we already have instead of pushing for new ones. Certainly the Jovian Sector has lots of room for expansion."

  "True," Hesse said. "But the living space itself is only part of the story. Human beings need frontiers, Colonel. We need places where the restless and ambitious can go."

  "And where the troublemakers can be dumped?" Faraday suggested pointedly.

  Under his brand-new Earth tan, Hesse reddened slightly. "There's some of that, too, I suppose," he conceded. "The bottom line, though, is that the Solar System stops at Pluto, and that's not all that far away anymore. If Raimey doesn't come through..." He shook his head.

  "He'll come through," Faraday assured him. "If there's anyway to do it, he will."

  "I hope you're right," Hesse said.

  Faraday looked back at the fuzzy monitors. Yes, he added silently to himself. So do I.

  SEVEN

  The pressures at the bottom of Level Three were stiffer than anything Raimey had yet encountered. But the temperature was pleasantly warm and there were interesting new foodstuffs to sample.

  And best of all, for the moment at least, he was alone. Or at least, as alone as he ever got.

  "It's not wise to be down here alone," Tigrallo warned from his perpetual spot at the edge of Raimey's vision. "And of all days, this one would be more properly spent with the others of the herd."

  "They won't even miss me," Raimey told him shortly, straining to dive still deeper. To get away from the herd, and the Babies, the Midlings, and the other Youths.

  And, most of all, to get away from Drusni.

  "They'll be singing the Song of Change in less than a ninth-part," Tigrallo reminded him.