by Timothy Zahn
"But Protectors and Nurturers can't reach Level Eight," Pranlo said, sounding even more puzzled.
"They don't have to," Manta told him. So the Qanska had their own version of a jungle-drum telegraph system. One more handy little tidbit the humans didn't know about. "They can reach a Counselor on Level Four, who can reach a Leader on Five, who can reach one of the Wise on Six or Seven. He then drops to Level Eight and sends the message, which is relayed as many times as necessary and then sent back up the levels to Counselor Latranesto."
"You understand such things," Latranesto commented approvingly. "And you understand them quickly. That is most gratifying."
"I understand some things, anyway," Manta said. "What I don't see, though, is what's so special about Level Eight. And why haven't I ever heard this thumping before? Surely the sound doesn't travel only on Level Eight."
"But it does," Latranesto said. "Only those of the Wise who are on Level Eight at the time will hear it."
Manta flipped his tails, conceding the point. It was something esoteric about the physics of that level, no doubt. Possibly something having to do with the radiation or magnetic fields down there. With his business major background, he probably wouldn't be able to figure it out even if Latranesto laid all the facts out for him.
Even if Latranesto knew all the facts, which he probably didn't. "I'll take your word for it," he said. "We'll have a longer conversation about it someday."
"Yes," Latranesto murmured. "And not only do you understand many things, but you question and gnaw at those you do not. Such curiosity is one of the chief traits of you and your human brothers."
Manta set his jaw. "The humans aren't my brothers," he declared firmly. "Not anymore. Whatever claims they might have had on my loyalty and service were lost forever when they launched that unprovoked attack on Qanskan children."
He straightened himself out to his full length. "I'm a Qanska, Counselor Latranesto. Now, and forever."
The defiant words faded into the silence of the whistling wind. "Perhaps," Latranesto said at last. If he was impressed by Manta's ringing declaration, it didn't show in his voice or expression. "Many of the Counselors and the Leaders and the Wise agree. Many others do not."
"Then they're wrong," Drusni said. "I know, better than anyone."
Latranesto's tails twitched. "Perhaps," he said. "Or perhaps your eyes are dimmed by friendship and hope."
"Eyes are never dimmed by friendship, Counselor Latranesto," Manta said quietly. "Friendship, love, and loyalty are what enable the eyes and heart to see better."
"Many others do not agree," Latranesto said again. "That was the reason this grand idea was abandoned and you were condemned to exile. Some believe you will always be human in heart and mind, and will forever serve as their agent."
"And I've told you that I won't," Manta repeated. "I wish I knew a way I could prove it to you."
"Do you?" Latranesto countered. "Do you really?"
Manta felt his breath catch in his throats. There had been something in the way the Counselor had said that.... "Yes," he said. "Tell me how."
For another ninepulse Latranesto hesitated. Then, his eyes drifted off into the distance. "Allow me to remember in your presence," he said. "Do you know what first attracted the Qanska to your people, Manta?"
Manta grimaced. "I thought it was you running into Chippawa and Faraday's tether line."
"No," Latranesto said, his tails undulating slowly in deep memory. "It was afterwards, after the Leaders and the Wise had examined them and sent them back to Level One. Our plan was for one of the Protectors to break the skin of the Counselor who carried them, drawing some of her blood. The Vuuka who responded would, we hoped, tear away the rest of the skin that covered their machine and permit them to escape."
Manta thought back over the history of that voyage. "It worked, too," he said.
"Yes," Latranesto said. "And if that had been all that happened, we might never have opened a conversation with your people.
"But it wasn't all. What caught our attention was that the humans inside had already created a plan of their own. It was a method that used a power we had never seen before."
"Fire," Manta murmured.
"That was the word," Latranesto confirmed. "The machine had already shown your people were a race who had methods and abilities far beyond ours."
His eyes suddenly focused on Manta again. "What the plan and the fire showed was that you were a race of problem-solvers."
Manta felt something prickling across his skin. Problem-solvers? "Are you telling me," he asked carefully, "that you have a problem?"
"A very serious problem, Breeder Manta," Latranesto said solemnly. "One which the Counselors and the Leaders and the Wise have decided must not be revealed to you."
"I see," Manta murmured. "But you're going to tell me anyway?"
Latranesto twitched his tails. "I am placing my own life between your teeth," he said, his voice heavy with reluctance. "You see, you swim between two opposing winds, Breeder Manta. There are those of the Counselors and the Leaders and the Wise who believe you have become truly Qanskan, and have lost all your human abilities. They believe you can't help us. In the other wind are those who believe that you are still human, and that you therefore remain a threat to the Qanska. They believe you won't help us. Both sides thus agree that you must never know the true reason you were asked to come into our world."
"And what about you?" Manta asked. "What do you believe?"
"I believe that you are a unique creature," Latranesto said. "That your loyalties have become Qanskan, but at the same time your mind and abilities remain human."
He lashed his tails again. "And I am prepared to risk my own life on that belief. For if it is revealed that I told you, your same punishment will also fall upon me. Or perhaps something worse."
"I understand," Manta said, a bad feeling beginning to wrap itself around his throats. What in the world could be happening here that would be this serious? "I'll do everything I can to help."
"What's the problem?" Pranlo asked.
Latranesto sent him a startled look, as if his swim through the past had made him forget that he and Manta weren't alone. For a pulse Manta thought he might order the other two away; but with a twitch of his tail, he merely turned back to Manta. Perhaps he realized he'd already said too much. "It's our world, Breeder Manta," he said, waving his fins to encompass the air around them. "Our entire world."
"What's wrong with it?" Manta asked.
Latranesto seemed to sigh. "It's dying."
TWENTY-FOUR
Drusni gave a little gasp. "Dying?" Pranlo demanded. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that the ancient pattern has returned," Latranesto said solemnly. "The pattern that has followed us to every new world we've ever found."
Manta's heartpulse sped up with reflexive excitement. Every new world... "Then it is true," he said. "You did come from somewhere else, as the humans believe. How long have you been here?"
"Not very long," Latranesto said. "Perhaps twenty-two Qanskan lifetimes. One hundred and seventy suncycles, as the world counts the passage of time."
"A hundred and seventy suncycles," Manta murmured, savoring the irony of it. A hundred and seventy Jovian years. Two thousand years, in Earth measurement.
Yet Faraday's argument for a Qanskan stardrive had been based on the fact that none of Earth's probes had ever spotted a Qanska until his own fateful Skydiver expedition. The humans had reached the correct conclusion, but for a completely wrong reason. "That's a pretty good stretch," he said.
"Perhaps as the humans count time," Latranesto said. "Within the span of Qanskan history, it's not much more than a nineday."
Manta thought back to the long and sometimes boring story circle sessions, where the history of the Qanska had been passed on to the new children in the herd. If their life here was just a nineday, the storytellers had clearly hit only the high points. "Tell me about this ancient pattern," he said. "How does it
work?"
"It begins when the Wise arrive at their new world," Latranesto said. "They begin to populate, as do all who have come alongside them. And for perhaps the first twenty lifetimes all goes as it should."
He lashed his tails restlessly. "But then the life pattern begins to change. Food plants disappear from the Centerline, as do some of the smaller animals. Small predators, cousins of the Sivra, die or go away. One day, the Brolka vanish from the birth pattern."
Manta flicked his own tails, remembering the differences in flora and fauna he'd observed in the northern and southern regions. "And it always starts in Centerline? In every world you've come to?"
Latranesto hesitated. "I don't know how it's been on other worlds," he admitted. "But in this place, and at this time, it has certainly happened that way."
"There are still Brolka being born in the outer regions," Manta pointed out. "I've seen them."
"So have I," Latranesto said. "But that gives no comfort. Once the pattern has started, we know of no way to stop it. The balance fails, and the fading of life continues. Eventually, many suncycles from now, the ancient pattern will encompass the entire world."
"And then?" Drusni asked quietly.
"Then all who are still alive on that dayherd will slowly die," Latranesto said sadly. "All except those who are able to make the journey to another world. But though they may leave, the ancient pattern will follow them."
"And this has been going on for how long?" Manta asked.
"As long as the story circle of the Qanska can remember," Latranesto said. "A very long time."
"I see," Manta said quietly. In his mind's eye he could see a long line of Qanska stretching into the misty past, and another stretching forward into the future. All of them trying to escape the leisurely curse haunting their race.
All of them failing.
"What else do you know about it?" he asked.
"I can list for you the details of the pattern, and the order in which the plant and animal vanishings occur," Latranesto told him. "We know them all too well. But what it all means, or why it happens, I can't tell you."
He flicked his tails at Manta. "You are a problem-solver, Manta, born of a race of problem-solvers. I plead with you on behalf of the Qanskan people. Can you find an answer to this problem?"
"Wow," Pranlo said under his breath. "Nothing like starting out snout to teeth with the biggest Vuuka swimming. You couldn't give him a simpler problem to warm up with?"
"This is why he's here, Breeder Prantrulo," Latranesto said, sounding annoyed at the other's levity. "The only reason. After the first human machine escaped, and for nearly a suncycle afterward, the Counselors and the Leaders and the Wise argued and discussed the possibility of asking the humans for help."
"Why didn't you?" Manta asked.
"Because we didn't trust them with the knowledge of our weakness," Latranesto said. "And, I might add, the events of a few ninedays ago seem to have justified that decision."
Manta grimaced. "No argument there."
"What we needed was someone who could understand our people," Latranesto went on. "We had combined once before with an alien species, so we knew it could be done. The Counselors and the Leaders and the Wise therefore decided to invite a human to join us, in the hope that he would learn to care enough for us to be willing to help."
"I see," Manta said, trying to decide how he felt about this sudden revelation. So there had been no altruism involved; no pure scientific curiosity, no simple desire for cultural exchange. Right from the very start this had been a grand scheme by the Qanska to use him.
But then, he could hardly blame them. Besides which, it wasn't any different in principle than the game the humans had been playing. "All right," he said. "This kind of problem is a little out of my area of expertise, but I'll give it a try."
"You must do more than just try," Latranesto insisted. "You must succeed. And you must succeed quickly."
"What's the rush?" Manta asked, frowning. "I thought you said we had hundreds of suncycles before things got serious."
"We and our world have time, yes," Latranesto agreed, his voice suddenly ominous. "But you yourself do not. You've refused the judgment of the Counselors and the Leaders and the Wise, and you've defied and attacked the Protector and Nurturer assigned to carry out that judgment. Unless you redeem yourself by finding a solution to the ancient pattern, there will be no way for me to protect you from the consequences of those actions."
Manta winced. He should have seen this one coming. "So I'm on my own."
"We're both on our own," Latranesto corrected tightly. "I've stretched my fins to the limit on your behalf, Manta. My own future faces the same Vuukan jaws that yours does."
Manta lashed his tails in a heavy nod. "I understand," he said. "I'll do my best."
Latranesto seemed about to say something, but then merely flicked his tails. "Of course," he said. "That's all I can ask or expect. Do you wish the details of the vanishings?"
Manta hesitated. "Not right now," he said. "I know the general pattern. That should be enough to get started on. If I need more details, I can always get them from you later."
Which, if not technically a lie, wasn't exactly the whole truth, either. The details could very well be vitally important; but only to someone who actually knew what in the Deep he was doing. Given Manta's own awesome lack of knowledge about ecological science, if he couldn't get the drift of this thing from the generalities, all the specifics in the world weren't going to do him a single bite of good.
"Very well," Latranesto said. "If you decide you need more information, just come back here. I'll stay in this area for the next eighteen ninedays."
"Understood," Manta said. "How should I contact you? Will I need to find a Protector to take you a message?"
"Absolutely not," Latranesto insisted. "You must stay away from everyone, especially Protectors. No, I'll come up to Level Four a short time before sundark every day in case you've returned."
"That should work," Manta agreed. "Next question: what about Pranlo and Drusni? Are they in the same trouble you and I are?"
Latranesto grunted something under his breath as he turned to look at the other two Breeders, holding position quietly off to the side. "The message from Gryntaro and Wirkani did not identify them," he said. "It was only because I knew your history that I suspected Breeder Prantrulo was the one involved in your escape. That's why I had my Protectors watching Breeder Druskani."
"Ah," Manta said. "I'd wondered how you found us so fast."
"If you go now, the two of you can leave in peace," Latranesto told them. "But beware. If you're caught in Manta's presence again, there will be consequences for you both."
He flicked his tails. "And as with him, there will be nothing I can do to protect you."
"We understand," Pranlo said. "Thank you."
"And don't worry," Drusni added. "If there's a solution to this problem, Manta will find it."
With an effort, Manta held his tongue. He didn't have even a ninth of Drusni's confidence in his problem-solving abilities. But there was no point in deflating her buoyancy.
"Then go," Latranesto said gravely. "The next time we meet, may you bring me good news."
"That would be nice for a change, wouldn't it?" Manta admitted. "Ever since I got here, it seems I've been a straight run of trouble for you."
"Yet you will fulfill the hopes of those who brought you here," Latranesto said quietly. "I, too, have that trust."
Manta took a deep breath. "I'll do my best," he promised again. "Farewell."
He swiveled to face Pranlo and Drusni. "And thank you," he said. "For everything. I'll be back as soon as I can." Not daring to wait for their response, he flipped around and swam away.
Pranlo had been right, he told himself grimly as he turned his right ear into the wind and headed south. A devastating curse that had defied the best Qanskan thinkers throughout their long history; and this was the problem they were expecting him to solve? This
wasn't just the biggest Vuuka swimming; this was all the Vuuka on Jupiter lined up in a row, waiting to take a crack at him.
He had no idea how to begin. None whatsoever. Clouds above and the Deep below, he'd studied business in school. Business. Profit and loss, inflow and outflow, pluses and minuses, sales and bargaining and corporate design. About the only things he knew about ecological disasters were the costs involved in preventing them and how to structure the financial losses that ensued if they happened anyway.
The humans up there on the station might be able to take a crack at it. Faraday and the others had access to information and expertise he couldn't hope to come up with down here. Maybe he should give them a call and see if they would be willing to chew it over.
He flipped his tails viciously. No. Not until he had some idea what the trouble was. Any beings who would swim so crookedly as to try to hold children for ransom could just as easily sell the Qanska a useless bill of goods. Without some idea of where the source of the problem lay, the Qanska would have no way of knowing if the humans were being honest with them or not.
Which unfortunately circled him right back to his original question. How in the Deep was he supposed to begin?
He was still turning the problem over in his mind, trying to get a tooth-hold on it, when he suddenly noticed that Pranlo and Drusni were swimming quietly alongside him.
"What are you two doing here?" he asked, frowning as he coasted to a halt.
"What does it look like we're doing?" Pranlo answered. "We're coming with you. So you think the answer lies in the southern regions?"
"Wait a pulse; wait just a Vuuka-mangled pulse," Manta growled. "Let's get something straight right now. You two are in the clear. You can go back to Centerline and your children and pick up your lives where they were before all this other mess happened. So go do it."
Drusni looked over at Pranlo. "He doesn't learn very fast, does he?" she commented.
"You do have to wonder sometimes," Pranlo agreed. "I remember us saying something about friendship. You?"
