Manta's Gift

by Timothy Zahn

  Beach looked again at Faraday. "Colonel?"

  "I gave you an order, Mr. Beach," Hesse said before Faraday could respond.

  "Go ahead, Mr. Beach," Faraday confirmed.

  Beach took a deep breath and turned to the panel between him and McCollum. The one they'd never used before... "Yes, sir."

  "I hope this is a good idea," Faraday warned Hesse quietly. "The McCarthy setup was only supposed to be used in emergencies. We don't even know if the thing will work."

  "I have full confidence in the Five Hundred's techs," Hesse said. "Mr. Beach, you'd better bring him all the way up to Level One."

  "He's not supposed to be that high," Sprenkle put in.

  "Just keep him away from the herds and there shouldn't be a problem," Hesse said.

  "I'm not so sure," Sprenkle persisted. "The Qanska have shown a strong propensity for strict letter-of-the-law thinking."

  "Raimey's a special case, remember?" Hesse countered. "It'll be all right."

  He looked back at Faraday. "It has to be done," he insisted. "You said yourself he's started thinking of himself as a Qanska. We need to realign any loyalties that might have drifted off-beam."

  "And what if we can't?" Faraday asked. "What are you going to do, fire him?"

  "I'm prepared to do whatever it takes," Hesse said, his voice grim. "But I don't anticipate any serious trouble. After all, he got into this in order to carve himself a big fat historical legacy. This is made to order."

  "He's moving," Beach announced, his voice oddly strained. "Heading upward."

  "Good," Hesse said. "I am curious, though, Colonel. Why did you name this thing after an old United States senator?"

  "What are you talking about?" Faraday asked, frowning.

  "The McCarthy setup," Hesse said. "It is named after Senator Joe McCarthy of the 1950s communist witch hunts, isn't it?"

  "No," Faraday said, shaking his head. "It's named after Charlie McCarthy."

  Hesse frowned. "Who was he?"

  "An associate of Edgar Bergen's," Faraday said. "A wooden-head."

  Hesse frowned even harder. "A what?"

  Faraday looked at the displays, thinking back to the Golden Age vids he'd loved as a child. When life had been so much simpler.

  And you never had to worry about whether you were betraying someone who had trusted you. "He was a ventriloquist's dummy," he told Hesse. "In other words... a puppet."

  "Mr. Raimey?"

  Raimey awoke with a start. Had someone actually called him by his old Earth name? Or had he just dreamed it?

  "Mr. Raimey?"

  He flicked his tails in annoyance. It was real, all right. It was them. "I'm here," he growled. "What do you want?"

  There was a short pause, no doubt as their computers worked busily to decipher the tonals. Shaking the sleep out of his eyes, wondering why no one up there had bothered to learn the language, he looked around him.

  And with a jolt came fully awake. This wasn't Level Three, where he'd gone to sleep. This was Level One.

  Level One?

  "Mr. Raimey, this is Hesse," Hesse's voice spoke up in the back of his brain. "Sorry to have wakened you, but we needed to talk to you privately."

  "You could have called when I was already awake," Raimey growled, still trying to figure this out. Had he been sleepwalking or something? He'd never done it before, not as a Qanska or even back when he was a human.

  Unless the adults or the Protectors of his herd had always just nudged him back to the rest of the group before.

  "We didn't want anyone else to even know we'd been in contact," Hesse said. "Do you remember when Colonel Faraday first recruited you for this job? He told you you'd go down in history as the first man to live in and study an alien culture."

  "Of course I remember," Raimey said tartly. If this was one of Dr. Sprenkle's stupid memory tests, he was going to have some choice words to say to all of them.

  "Good," Hesse said. "As it turns out, the truth is even more exciting than that. The Qanska—"

  "Wait a ninepulse," Raimey cut him off. "What do you mean, 'the truth'? What was the rest of it, a lie?"

  "No, no, not at all," Hesse said hastily. "It's just that there's more truth than we first told you."

  "Oh, good—bonus truth," Raimey said sarcastically. "How nice. Why haven't I heard about this before?"

  "It was a decision made at the highest levels," Hesse said. He was starting to sound a little rattled now. "I promise you, there was no intent to—what I mean—"

  "It was decided we couldn't afford the risk of it leaking out to the Qanska," Colonel Faraday's calmer voice put in. "I'm sorry for the deception. You'll understand when you hear."

  "I'm listening," Raimey said, keeping his voice neutral. Off to his left he could hear the distant squeaking of hungry babies beginning to awaken, along with the much deeper rumblings of Protectors telling them to be patient. There must be a herd that direction.

  And he'd been told to stay away from herds. He'd better get this over with and drop back down where he belonged.

  "We've been exploring Jupiter by telescope since Galileo, and by space probes since the late twentieth century," Faraday said. "In all that time, right up to the point where Chippawa and I literally ran into them, we never spotted even a hint that the Qanska existed."

  "They live underneath the clouds," Raimey reminded him patiently. They'd dragged him out of a good sleep for this? "Of course you didn't see them."

  "And we'd been using deep probes and tethered capsules for twenty years before we ran into them," Faraday went on as if Raimey hadn't spoken. "I've seen the data, and we had the planet pretty well bracketed."

  "Which is a big help, considering that they keep mostly to the equatorial regions," Raimey pointed out.

  "Well, we know that now," Faraday conceded. "We also know there are only a few million of them, far fewer than our first estimates."

  "Which is maybe why you kept missing them?"

  "Perhaps," Faraday said. "But perhaps not."

  Raimey sighed. "I assume there's a point buried in here somewhere?"

  "An extremely important point," Faraday assured him. "Even taking all the rest of it into account, those who have reviewed the data have come to the conclusion that the Qanska are not native to Jupiter."

  Raimey frowned. "What do you mean, not native? Then where in hell did they—?"

  He broke off as it suddenly struck him. "No," he murmured. "That's crazy."

  "It's not crazy," Faraday said quietly. "There is a very strong probability that your Qanskan friends came here from somewhere outside our Solar System. Which means that they have a stardrive.

  "And I'm afraid we want it."

  NINE

  "Wait a ninepulse," Raimey said, his head spinning like an eddy vortex. "This is crazy."

  "I know it sounds that way," Faraday said. "But that's the inescapable conclusion. The Qanska weren't there when we started looking at Jupiter. They didn't arrive by huge colony or sleeper ships or anything else slower-than-light—"

  "How do we know that?" Raimey cut him off. "They could have sneaked in when no one was looking. Astronomers don't spend all their time staring at the Outer System."

  "No, they don't," Faraday acknowledged. "But there are thousands of amateur comet-hunters who do. If the Qanska had come here through normal space, someone would surely have spotted their ships."

  Raimey flicked his tails in a grimace. "Maybe you're just wrong about them being imports, then. Maybe your fancy probes aren't as good as you think they are."

  "Why are you fighting this so hard?" Hesse asked. "What, does it bother your worldview or something? You act like we're asking you to believe something completely outrageous."

  "I don't know why it bothers me," Raimey said. "But since you bring up the subject, what exactly are you asking me to do?"

  "We need that stardrive, Matthew," Faraday said, his voice quiet and sincere. Excruciatingly sincere. "We've looked now into every corner of the Solar
System, and there's nothing there but cold rock or half-liquid gas. We've worked at developing every plot of ground that was economically feasible, and quite a few that weren't. The end of the road is ahead of us, and it's not all that far off. Without a stardrive, humanity will soon be without a frontier for the adventurous to cut their teeth on. And without a frontier, the whole race will stagnate and eventually die."

  "Great speech," Raimey said sardonically. "Noble sentiments, well-practiced phrasing, and it even sounded sincere. So let me guess. You want me to find and steal this alleged stardrive of theirs. Right? Or did you have a more noble way of putting it?"

  "We're not going to steal it," Faraday said firmly. "At least, not permanently."

  "Besides, who says they've only got one?" Hesse put in. "They could have dozens or even hundreds of them for all we know."

  "All we want is the chance to get one of them on a lab table and learn how it works," Faraday added. "Once we know how to build one of our own, well return it."

  "Really," Raimey said. "And what happens if there is only one, and you can't figure it out? You think that after going to all that trouble the Five Hundred will just meekly hand it back?"

  "They've given their word that they will," Faraday said.

  "Whose word?" Raimey countered. "The group running the show at this particular ninepulse? Come on, Faraday—they try to give it back, and they'd spark the biggest floor fight since the Leyster Seating. Even I know enough about politics to figure that one out. And you've got three guesses as to which side would win."

  "It won't come to that," Hesse said firmly. "Anything the Qanska can create, we can duplicate."

  "In that case, what do you need the Qanska for?" Raimey shot back. "Go build one of your own if you're so smart."

  "Are you saying you won't help us?" Hesse asked, his voice tight.

  "Matthew, your people need you," Faraday said before Raimey could answer.

  "That's nice to hear," Raimey said. "Okay, fine—let's assume for a ninepulse that you and the Five Hundred are as pure as the air in a Baby's buoyancy sac. What happens if all that careful study ends up destroying it? Then what? Apologies all around, and we go our separate ways?"

  "You keep assuming there's only one of them," Hesse said, starting to sound annoyed. "There are probably—"

  "Yes, I know," Raimey cut him off. "Hundreds and hundreds of them, as far as the eye can see. So how many have you ever actually seen? Or detected with probes, or picked up with deep radar?"

  "If we knew where they were—"

  "Then you wouldn't need me," Raimey concluded. "Right. So you go ahead and assume whatever you want. I'm not even ready to concede there's even one, let alone whole clouds of them. And you haven't answered my question."

  "Mr. Raimey, what do you expect us to say?" Hesse demanded. "Of course we'll be as careful as humanly possible. And Colonel Faraday's right; one way or another we will give it back. What more can we tell you?"

  "How about telling me that this is all a bad joke?" Raimey suggested. "Or something Dr. Sprenkle dreamed up, which is basically the same thing? How about telling me that you're not really asking me to betray my friends and my people this way."

  "Your people?" Hesse asked, an odd note in his voice. "Mr. Raimey, your people are here."

  "Are they?" Raimey countered. "Are you sure?"

  "Aren't you?" Faraday asked. "No matter what you look like on the outside, on the inside you're still Matthew Raimey."

  Raimey flapped his fins restlessly. "I don't even know that anymore," he muttered.

  "Look—" Faraday began.

  "No, that's enough," Raimey cut him off. "You've had your say. I'll think about it."

  He heard someone hiss a sigh. "All right," Faraday said reluctantly. "But don't think too long. We need to get moving on this."

  "Push too hard, and you'll come to a flapping stop right here," Raimey warned. "And the next time you want to talk, do it when I'm awake, okay?"

  He flipped over and headed down, his thoughts a tangled swirl—

  And pulled up sharply as he nearly slammed headlong into Drusni.

  "Drusni!" he gasped. "What are you doing here?"

  "That was my question," she said, peering closely at him. "I was following you. Are you all right?"

  "Following me?" he asked stupidly.

  "I woke up, and you were leaving," she explained. "I think you must have brushed against me or something."

  "Sorry," Raimey said. "I don't know what happened. Maybe I was sleepwalking."

  "Sleepwalking?"

  "Well, sleep-swimming, I guess you'd have to call it," he corrected himself. "We sometimes get that among—well, it happens to humans sometimes. Have you ever heard of anything like this with Qanska?"

  "No," Drusni said. "But we can ask around. Were you sleep-talking, too?"

  Raimey felt something cold grip his throats. How much of the conversation had she heard? "The humans were talking to me," he said, the words coming out stiffly. "They wanted me to do something for them."

  "So I gathered," she said. "Sounded like you weren't very interested, either. You want to tell me about it?"

  "Well..."

  "But on the way down," she added, rolling over and flipping herself vertical. "We're not supposed to be up here."

  "I know," Raimey said, glad of an excuse to change the subject. He flipped vertical himself—

  And suddenly flattened out again, flapping his fins to hold himself steady. There was something in the air...

  "Come on," Drusni called, reversing her own plunge and rising up beneath him. "You want a Protector to catch us here?"

  "No, wait," Raimey said, sniffing the air. Where had he smelled this particular scent before?

  And then, abruptly, he had it. The smell that had flooded over him as he watched Tigrallo fighting for his life. "Sivra!" he hissed. "There's a pack of Sivra nearby!"

  "Sivra?" Drusni echoed, spinning in a tight curve as she looked around them. "What in the Deep are you talking about?"

  "Trust me," Raimey said grimly, trying to get a direction for the odor. "I know what they smell like."

  "But they never come up to Level One," Drusni protested, still peering around. "They're too heavy, and they don't have enough fin size to let them swim this high."

  "Well, someone must have figured out a way to do it," Raimey said. There it was; off to his left.

  The same direction as the herd he'd noticed earlier.

  He looked around, suddenly remembering Virtamco. But the other was nowhere to be seen. Apparently, Raimey's little sleep-swimming trick had given his private Protector the slip.

  Which meant it was up to him and Drusni. "Come on," he said, curving around and pushing hard against the air. "We've got to warn them."

  "But—"

  Raimey didn't wait to listen, driving off through the dim sunlight as fast as he could swim. The sounds of those innocent newborns were growing louder in his ears, as was the faint aroma of hunting Sivra.

  And laid over all of it like a ghostly transparency was that horrible mental image of Tigrallo's torn body.

  Ahead, a shape was beginning to emerge from the gloom. A female Breeder, a couple of meters bigger than he was, and very pregnant. She was drifting away from the herd at an angle as she methodically scooped up mouthfuls along a run of chinster. The smell was getting stronger...

  And then, suddenly, there they were: a whole pack of the eel-like predators, hanging by their teeth to a small Vuuka pumping his way laboriously upward. Even as Raimey tried desperately for more speed, the Vuuka and his entourage reached the oblivious female.

  And as the Vuuka swam over her, the Sivra shook themselves free from him and dropped down toward her.

  "Look out!" Raimey shouted. Startled, the female spun to look at him—

  And wailed a scream as the first of the Sivra bit hard into her back.

  "Damn!" Raimey snarled, driving toward her. "Drusni, go get the Protectors."

  "Right," she
called from somewhere behind him.

  But they wouldn't get there in time, Raimey knew. Even as the pregnant female thrashed around in a desperate attempt to shake them off, the rest of the pack landed on her back and fins, their long teeth slicing through the thick skin as they started to bore their way inside. The Qanskan skin-growth defense mechanism could only handle so many of them at once, Raimey knew; and as soon as the rest were able to eat through to vital organs, it would be all over.

  And there was no one close enough to stop them. No one except Raimey.

  The Breeder was still thrashing around as he shot low across her back. Keeping his fins rigid, he sliced across the rows of chewing Sivra like a mowing machine cutting through a wheat field.

  The results were decidedly unimpressive. The impact managed to dislodge one or two of the predators, but the others had enough of a grip to stay attached.

  The female screamed again. "Don't do that," she gasped. "It hurts!"

  Raimey ignored the plea, braking hard and swinging around for a second pass. Yes, pulling at entrenched Sivra was going to hurt like the Deep. But it beat all the alternatives. He swung over her again, slower this time, grabbing at the Sivra with his mouth as he passed and biting down on each as hard as he could.

  The results this time were a little better. He was able to dislodge two or three of the latecomers, but the rest either ignored him or were so deeply dug in that they couldn't have let go even if they'd wanted to. Again he flapped to a quick halt and swung around; but this time, the female's thrashing fin caught him squarely in the belly, knocking some of the breath out of his lungs.

  Not only his lungs, but also his buoyancy sacs. Even as he gasped for air, he found himself dropping down away from the battle. Clenching his jaws tightly, he flapped hard with his fins, forcing himself back up into the thinner air. The female was also starting to sink as her attempts to shake off the Sivra grew weaker. Raimey charged up toward her—

  And was suddenly bowled over by the turbulence as four big Qanska roared past him.

  The Protectors had arrived.

  "Stay back," the last one in line snapped, flashing a glare at Raimey as he passed. A second later they were grouped around the female, biting and flapping and slashing with their tails at the remaining Sivra, knocking them loose or crushing them against the Breeder's skin.