An Accidental Alliance (16 page)

     
“She comes by her intellect honestly,” Park laughed. “She’s her father’s daughter from tip to tail.”

     
As though mentioning the girl caused her to appear, Merisea hopped out of the door to the base just then. The door was installed over the same hole in the stairwell wall Park, Iris and Arn had discovered shortly after waking up. The mermaid turned back toward the door and called back in Merish, “See? I knew they’d be up here. Hi, Park, Hi, Arn,” she added in English. By now Marisea could converse in English nearly as well as in her native tongue and while her accent was unlike anything Park had ever heard, he found it charming and hoped she would never lose it. His own grasp of Merish, while he was assured by Taodore and Marisea was excellent, he knew lagged far behind.

     
Both men returned the greeting as Tack crawled up onto the hill-like roof of the complex. “Good morning, Tack,” Park added to the shaman.

     
“A good morning to you too, Parker Holman,” Tack replied. He was wearing Marisea’s torq and his click-clacking words were instantly translated. “Might we converse?”

     
“Of course,” Park agreed. “Have a seat if you like.”

     
“I shall leave you two alone,” Arn got up suddenly. He may have warmed to Marisea, but not to the Atackack. “I’m supposed to give final approval before we start paving anyway.”

     
It was a polite lie, Park knew. Arn would be inspecting before the paving operation, but the builders had yet to roll the dirt over which the concrete and asphalt would be laid. He had
 
hours before he would be needed, maybe even another day or two.

     
“I promised to help pick tomatoes,” Marisea announced. “I hope we can grow a lot more soon. They’re delicious.” It had turned out that with the exception of the infrequent alergy, the Mer could eat anything the humans could. Marisea hop-stepped to the edge of the hill and called back, “Hey, Park! Look what I can do!” Then she jumped as high as she could and fell in slow motion all the way to the base of the hill.

     
“Nice trick,” Park commented dryly. “I’ll have to get one of those belts and try it for myself.”

     
“Why?” Okactack asked, puzzled.

     
“It looks like fun,” Park explained.

     
The Atackack obviously did not understand why anyone would want to jump off a large hill, but after swaying forth and back in a gesture Park had come to understand was confusion, the shaman finally sat in the Atackack manner with his legs and lower arms on the ground, but bent upward with his upper arms in the air. Park didn’t know if the ants of the past could get into that position, but decided that as long as Tack was comfortable that way, it did not matter.

     
“What do you want to talk about, Tack?” he asked pleasantly.

     
“You have asked about my vision,” Tack replied. “I am ready to explain.”

     
“All right,” Park nodded.

     
Tack took his time, but after another minute of silence, he began, “I have been having visions nearly all my life. It is why I was chosen.”

     
“Chosen?” Park asked.

     
“A shaman does not wake up one day and decide to be a shaman,” Tack replied. “It is something to be avoided. But the other shamans can see those who have the gift and once you are chosen there is no denying it. It just is. I have no regrets and in fact I no longer even understand why I tried to avoid it. I am shaman and always have been, Do you understand, Parker Holman?”

     
“I think I do,” Park nodded. “Yes.”

     
“Good,” Tack responded with satisfaction. “I also want you to understand that not all shamans have such visions. Some are chosen for their aptitude at healing or for their natural leadership qualities. Each Atackack tribe is governed by its queen, so when a male is found who can lead, those qualities must be redirected for the good of the tribe. Shaman leaders will often lead female soldiers into battle. There are other reasons a male may be chosen to be shaman, but most males prefer a life of leisure in which their only responsibility is to fertilize the queen.”

     
“All right,” Park nodded again, “by being shaman, you are one of a very extraordinary few. Correct?”

     
“That is correct, Parker Holman,” Tack agreed. “It is a great responsibility especially for a mystic like myself. We know that a mystic’s visions are always accurate although they are often confusing, and I want to tell you about my strongest vision.”

     
“By vision, do you mean a prophecy?” Park asked.

     
Tack paused to touch the torq he was wearing. He touched a few of the buttons and the torq clicked and clacked at him. Park decided it was giving him a list of synonyms. “Yes,” Tack replied finally. “A prophecy.”

     
“I imagine this will be as complicated and obscure as most prophecies, then,” Park replied.

     
“It is not complicated,” Tack replied instantly, “it may be obscure.”

     
“You may be the first prophet I’ve ever met to admit that,” Park replied.

     
“You have met many prophets, Parker Holman?” Tack countered with a sense of humor Park had not previously suspected.

     
“Oh here you are!” Iris said suddenly, coming out of the doorway. “Marisea said you needed me here, Park.”

     
“Me?” Park asked. “No. I suspect she meant Tack wanted to speak to both of us together.”

     
“Both of you, yes,” Tack agreed eagerly. Iris sat beside Park and Tack became silent and motionless for a long time, and then
 
began to speak. “Our world is in grave danger,” he began. Even through the translator capabilities of the torq, his voice seemed to change and become distant and hollow. “Our enemy has us in his grasp and is squeezing the life out of the entire world. No one will live; not the Atackack, not the Mer, not even your own people. If the enemy has his way, Earth will become a dead world. There are also two strangers who alone have the ability to stop the enemy. I can see them through their actions, but their faces are hidden from me, but they shall lead us all to our salvation.”

     
Park and Iris were silent for a while, waiting to see if Tack would continue, and then something clicked in Park’s mind. “Oh wait just a minute. Are you saying that we’re the strangers of your prophesy?”

     
“I think you are,” Tack replied in a more normal sounding voice. “I hope and pray you are. If you are not, I fear what may happen to us all.”

     
“What are we supposed to do?” Iris asked a bit more practically.

     
“You are supposed to save the Earth and everyone on it,” Tack told her. If he had been anatomically capable of shrugging, Iris and Park thought he would have. “I only know the what, but not the how. You were correct, Parker Holman. Perhaps it is obscured from us at this time. But there have been signs that you are the two.”

     
“Signs and portents?” Park asked lightly.

     
Tack did not recognize sarcasm. “Just so. In my vision I saw your wedding.”

     
“Our wedding,” Iris echoed. “What was that blessing you said?”

     
“Hmm?” Tack’s translation asked. “Just the traditional ceremony among the Atackack.”

     
“Don’t all the males, aside from shamans, marry the queen?” Park asked.

     
“They all service the queen,” Tack replied, “but most choose to live with worker females. Procreation has nothing to do with an Atackack marriage. Among us, companionship and love are paramount. I have discussed this with Taodore Waisau, but I am not sure he understood. The animals of this world bond through the sex act, I think, but the Atackack bond in a more intellectual way.”

     
“But the language you used was not translated,” Iris pointed out.

     
“It was an ancient language,” Tack explained. “We do not use it in conversations for the Mers’ computers have never heard enough to be able to translate.”

     
“Never mind that,” Park interrupted. “I’m more concerned with your signs and portents. Merely accepting your blessing can hardly be a sign.”

     
“There were others,” Tack replied. “You proved yourselves to be saviors when you came to Marisea Waisau’s rescue.”

     
“You foresaw that too?” Park asked, this time barely hiding his skepticism.

     
“No, I did not,” Tack replied, sounding almost as though he were laughing. “That merely told me what sort of people you were. But I have been looking around your Van Winkle Base. What does that mean? Van Winkle?”

     
“It’s an old story,” Park replied. “It was written almost three hundred years before I was born although it was based on even older versions of the story. I’ll be glad to tell it to you sometime, but the main character, Rip Van Winkle, supposedly slept for twenty years and when he woke up he had to deal with all the changes that had occurred while he was not there to see them happen.”

     
Tack thought about that and decided, “Very appropriate, that is, indeed, what you are doing.”

     
“Would the Galactics, really destroy the Earth?” Iris wondered. “Didn’t Taodore say they consider this world a nature preserve?”

     
“They might,” Park nodded, “but it seems to me that there are various sorts of preservation. What if some wacko decided the Mer and the Atackack are an infestation?”

     
“Unpleasant thought,” Iris shook her head. “Tack, what about your people? You’re naturally evolved, the Galactics couldn’t be prejudiced against you.”

     
“Prejudice is not a logical thing, Iris Fain,” Tack almost chuckled. “But I have not said the Galactics are the enemy.” He paused and lapsed back into his prophetic voice. “The enemy is of the Earth but not from it. The saviors are both of the Earth and have always been from it.” For a moment he shook his head and added in a normal voice, “That was new. The vision comes to my eyes at odd moments sometime.”

     
“This is a heavy burden you are placing on us,” Park told him, “assuming it is real.”

     
Tack did not bother to debate the reality of his vision, which made Park all the more uncomfortable when the insect replied, “It is not your task to save the world all by yourselves. All the peoples of the Earth must be your allies.”

     
“And does your vision care to give us any clues as to where we should start?” Park inquired.

     
“I am convinced that whatever you choose to do will be correct, Parker Holman,” Tack replied.

     
“Then why bother telling us any of this in the first place?” Park asked, aggravated.

     
“It was necessary,” Tack replied. “Telling you started the chain of events that will save our world. Know this, however, the safe course leads to certain disaster.”

     
Once Taodore’s computer had been reconfigured to act as a link between Van Winkle Base and The Mer network, information began to flow in both directions. Even while the government was dithering over whether to establish formal relations, the Mer scientists were happily swapping recipes with their human counterparts, and culturologists and archaeologists were anxiously arranging to visit the human base.

     
Arn and Park studied the terms of the Covenant closely and were frequently at odds over what some of the passages meant. “This thing reads like it was translated through Coptic, Farsi, French, Chinese and Spanish before someone thought of putting it in English,” Arn grumbled.

     
“Effectively,” Park replied, “that may well be the case. Not those languages, of course, but it probably has been retranslated many times and by many translators as well. The various clauses are not consistent. In some places they refer to the Mer quite specifically, but in others it merely says Earth People.”

     
“Sometimes in the same sentence,” Arn added sourly. “And that stupid argument about being gene-locked can’t be seen anywhere.”

     
“Well, I’m fairly certain, Taodore’s right when he thinks some of those reasons are just insults, official or unofficial,” Park told him. “Nothing to go on there, of course, but it feels right. I also am fairly certain this document was only ever meant to apply to the Mer. What I don’t like is that for all the high-falootin’ words, it all comes down to an unconditional surrender.”

     
“Yes, but I notice that there is nothing in here about how high a satellite or space craft may be in orbit, so long as it does not doesn’t leave Earth orbit,” Arn observed.

     
“And I notice these Galactics aren’t playing fair,” Park added. “The way I see it, the Moon, being in Earth orbit, belongs to Earth, but they have a city up there and they’re not paying rent. They do say they are preserving Earth in the name of those who came before them. I figure that’s us, whether they know it or not.”

     
“I hate squatters,” Arn grinned viciously.

     
“What are you thinking, Arn?” Park asked.

 
    
“Same thing as I’ve been thinking all along,” Arn replied. “We need to launch our communications satellites. We’ll reprogram them to relay Mer signals, of course and get a decent and consistent signal out to our friends.”