"In theory, certainly," the First said. "In actual practice, though, it never remains in such balance for long. The Twenty-second is quite right in fearing that other, more radical Zhirrzh will seize upon Thrr-pifix-a's case, twisting it into an attack on Elders and Eldership generally." He gestured to the Second. "It happened twice during my son's tenure as Overclan Prime."
"And once during mine," the Ninth put in.
"And during mine, as well," the Sixteenth added.
"There's no need to list them all," the First said. "The point is that this is not uncharted territory. It's a threat that has raised itself time and again throughout Zhirrzh history, threatening to erode the sense that Eldership is an absolute right that cannot be altered or taken away. If you allow individual Zhirrzh to refuse Eldership, the inevitable result will be Zhirrzh claiming the right to make that same decision not for themselves, but for others. Never mind the lack of a logical connection; it's been demonstrated time and again that that is the direction in which such thinking evolves. The only way to keep that from happening is to make sure we never take that first step."
"And so the very idea must be suppressed," the Prime said.
"Yes," the First agreed solemnly. "As quickly as possible. As ruthlessly as necessary."
"I see," the Prime said, a shiver running through him as he looked around the room. He'd never heard even rumors of such incidents-he, the Overclan Prime of the Zhirrzh people. A ruthless suppression, indeed. "And you're convinced that suppression is the only way? All of you?"
"Do you doubt our word?" the Twelfth demanded, the pitch of his voice dropping imperiously. "Our combined experience alone-"
"Please," the First said again. "Of course we can't guarantee that this is the only way, Twenty-ninth. No one can. But at the very least, any such movement against Eldership would be a serious distraction for the Zhirrzh people. And we cannot afford even a beat of distraction. Not now. Not as we battle for our survival against these conquerors."
"No, I suppose not," the Prime murmured. "Very well. You've presented the problem. Have you likewise prepared a solution?"
"We have," the Sixteenth rumbled. "The problem arises not because of what this Thrr-pifix-a wants but because of what she is: a common, reasonable, respectable person. As you yourself said, there are crazed fanatics all the time who don't want Eldership."
"Yes," the Prime said grimly. He saw where this was going now, all right. "And therefore what we need to do is prove Thrr-pifix-a to be as crazed as any of the rest of them."
"I take it from your voice that you don't approve," the Twenty-eighth suggested.
The Prime looked him square in the face. "No, Father, I don't," he said bluntly. "I don't like using the office of Overclan Prime this way. It feels far too much like an abuse of the power I've been granted."
"Then perhaps you should resign," the Twelfth snapped. "An Overclan Prime who's afraid of his power is of no use at all to the Zhirrzh people."
"Or perhaps he's all the more valuable to them," the Prime snapped back. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it the abuse of personal power that has led to most of our wars?"
"Well stated," the Eighteenth said approvingly. "But as it happens, the abuse of personal power-not yours-is a second problem that you're currently facing. Our proposal is that you solve both of these problems with the same knife."
The Prime frowned at him. "I'm listening."
"It's really quite simple," the Twelfth said. "You have on the one side Thrr-pifix-a of the Kee'rr clan, who wishes to decline Eldership. On the other side you have Speaker Cvv-panav of the Dhaa'rr, whose ambition is clearly to build his clan's power beyond even the height of its old political dominance." He eyed the Prime. "This latter, I presume, is not news to you."
"Hardly," the Prime assured him sourly. "Cvv-panav sees himself as the head of a new Dhaa'rr empire."
"And because of that he must be made to stumble," the Twelfth said. "Not to fall, but to stumble. Here is what we propose."
The twenty-nine of them talked long into the latearc... and in the end the Prime reluctantly gave in. At the least, he told himself, it would reduce the distractions that were being created by Speaker Cvv-panav's drive for power, allowing all of them to concentrate more fully on their war of survival.
And if it hurt an old, harmless female... well, perhaps that was the price that had to be paid.
The price of Zhirrzh survival. And of the Prime's own education regarding the painful duties that sometimes came with power.
11
The door to the metal room swung open, the muffled clang bringing Prr't-zevisti out of one of the dreamy mental wanderings that seemed to pass for sleep among Elders. He eased to the edge of the lightworld as a single Human came into the room and flicked on the light.
Good luck was with him: it was the Human called Doctor-Cavan-a. A Human who, bearing a Zhirrzh female-style name, ironically enough did indeed seem to be a female. The Humans had been doing a lot of rearranging in this room lately, moving the shelves around and changing what was being stored on them, and as a result Doctor-Cavan-a hadn't been around much. To Prr't-zevisti's annoyance, too-his inspections of the Humans who came in here were necessarily slow and stealthy, and there were still a number of areas of Human anatomy that he hadn't yet been able to get to. Most notably that organ in the lower abdomen that some young searcher on Base World 12 had speculated might be a Human equivalent of the Zhirrzhfsss organ. Not that anyone seriously believed it was.
But at any rate, she was back. Now, with a little more good luck, maybe she'd stay put for a while.
Doctor-Cavan-a went to one side of the room and pushed a small box a half stride farther into a corner, then turned and gestured a hand toward the door. "All right," she said. "Bring it in."
There was a grunted response, a clink of metal on metal, and the front end of a large tablelike slab with thick side supports appeared in the doorway. A very different sort of table from the ones the two Zhirrzh bodies had been dissected on, Prr't-zevisti noted. This one had several indentations and clamps scattered around its upper surface, apparently deliberately positioned. The rear edge flowed up into a ridge with small apertures and various controllike devices set into it. Not an autopsy examination stand, this, but more like some alien version of a searcher's laboratory table.
Abruptly, a twinge of low-level pain lanced through him. Prr't-zevisti tensed, forcing himself to keep quiet. An Elderdeath weapon again, its beam impinging on hisfsss cutting sitting there in its box on one of the shelves. It had been happening more and more frequently lately, and Prr't-zevisti still hadn't decided whether it was a deliberate attack against him or merely a side effect of some general weapons testing.
One thing was certain, though. Despite Supreme Ship Commander Dkll-kumvit's efforts at the beginning of this invasion, the Humans clearly still had access to Elderdeath weapons. Maybe not as powerful or long-range as the two the heavy air-assault craft had knocked out, but undoubtedly just as dangerous at close range. A potentially vital discovery, and he could only hope he would be able to find a way out of here with it before Commander Thrr-mezaz's warriors launched their attack on the place.
Assuming, of course, the attack ever came. Prr't-zevisti had heard disturbing rumors before his capture that Warrior Command was preparing expeditionary forces against more of the Human worlds, forces that were supposedly going to be launched before the current beachheads were anything but minimally secured.
It was a strategy that made no sense at all to Prr't-zevisti, even given how admittedly out-of-date his own warrior training and experience were. But if true, it might explain why Thrr-mezaz hadn't yet moved against the Humans' stronghold. The warriors had lost both of their heavy air-assault craft and several of their Stingbirds in the initial invasion, and without adequate reinforcements an attack would be nothing less than lunacy cubed.
The two other Humans finished rolling the table into the room and left, leaving the female Human alone inside. The door swung shut behind them, and as it did so, the nearby Elderdeath weapon stopped.
Doctor-Cavan-a opened a drawer in one of the table's thick side supports and withdrew two unfamiliar pieces of equipment, setting them side by side on the table. One had a thin cable attached; taking the end of the cable, she inserted it into one of the apertures in the raised edge and flicked a switch. There was a soft hum; and with it came a new low-intensity flicker of Elderdeath sensation.
Prr't-zevisti tensed, expecting the worst. But the level stayed where it was, a sort of mental humming well below any sort of pain threshold. More like the sun-sense he remembered from childhood, now that he thought about it: the ability to locate the sun even through heavy clouds.
A sense that, like all Zhirrzh children, he'd lost the fullarc after his tenth birth anniversary. For him that had been the most traumatic part of the wholefsss -removal operation, more upsetting than the anesthetic or the wooziness or even the ten fullarcs of bandaged ache at the back of his head. It had been like going a little blind, and not even his parents' assurances that it would be ultimately worthwhile had been any real consolation.
Impatiently, he sliced away the thought. He was there to study the Humans, not to sit around endlessly reminiscing like some old Elder with nothing better to do. The Human female was making some adjustments to the device, but though the sun-sense altered subtly, it never approached anything remotely painful. Perhaps the Humans had miscalculated the threshold of Elderdeath pain. Or perhaps they thought they could annoy him into submission.
The Human female touched the small black box, at its customary place on one corner of the table. "Doctor-Cavan-a," she said. "(Something) eighteenth, twenty-three-oh-three."
Prr't-zevisti eased as close to the lightworld as he dared, straining to understand. The Human-language briefing he'd been given before coming to Dorcas had turned out to be more complete than he'd first realized, and he'd picked up a surprising number of new words in the past three fullarcs just by watching and listening. But it took concentration, and even so there were any number of words that still eluded him.
"Begin (something) secondary (something) work on the Zhirrzh (something) sample," the Human female continued. "I'll start with a first (something) (something) analysis." She stepped away from the desk-
And to Prr't-zevisti's sudden horror reached toward the shelf and picked up the box containing hisfsss cutting. Carrying it back to the table, she opened it.
He was back in the grayworld in an instant, dropping deep into the darkness. Running the only way he could, knowing full well the whole time how utterly useless and childish it was. As long as he was anchored here, whatever pain Doctor-Cavan-a chose to apply to his cutting would instantly be transmitted to him. "I'm take (something) a three (something) sample," he heard Doctor-Cavan-a say. There was a twinge, an almost-felt stab of almost pain-
And then, nothing. Only the background sun-sense.
"Sample take (something)," Doctor-Cavan-a continued. "Looks good. I'm put (something) it into the (something)."
Cautiously, suspiciously, Prr't-zevisti eased back to the edge of the lightworld. Doctor-Cavan-a was bent over one of the instruments, peering into a rectangular tube. Hisfsss cutting was back in its box beside the instrument, apparently untouched.
He frowned, moving over for a closer look. No; he was wrong. The once-smooth circular edge of the cutting now showed a tiny gap. The sample, apparently, that Doctor-Cavan-a had mentioned.
He looked back at her. She was still peering into the tube, but from his new vantage point he could now see glimmerings of light from inside it. A hooded display, he decided, and moved beside her for a look.
It was all he could do to stifle a gasp of amazement. He'd seen Zhirrzh cellular structure through microscopes before, certainly-there'd been whole classes devoted to such things back when he was in school. And certainly there'd been tremendous advances since then; as recently as a cyclic ago he'd seen a demonstration of an awesome new microscope that Warrior Command had commissioned from a group of searchers and technics. They'd hailed it at the time as a triumph of Zhirrzh ingenuity and expertise.
This one left it in the dust.
It was nothing short of astonishing. In the center of the display were a group offsss cells, sharper and clearer than he'd ever seen them. Superimposed on them were multicolored rings and curves and lines, with other multicolored symbols scattered around the edges. Some of the symbols had lines linking them to various parts of the cell, while others scrolled like words on a reader display. Even as he watched, one of the lines created a small square at its tip, the image inside the square magnifying to fill the display. One of the secondary nuclei, Prr't-zevisti tentatively identified it. More symbols, rings, and lines appeared. A hunbeat later another of the small squares formed, and the microscope zoomed in on a portion of the secondary nucleus's edge.
A microscope and analysis machine both. Half the size of the best the Zhirrzh could come up with for a microscope alone.
Slowly, Prr't-zevisti moved back from the Human female, a sense of stunned dread replacing his earlier astonishment. He'd heard the reports from theFar Searcher, had seen firsthand some of the bits and pieces of technology that had been scavenged from the wrecks of those Human warcraft. But aside from the recorder and a few parts of the Human prisoner's private spacecraft, it had all been damaged and nonworking. Odd arrangements of metal and unknown materials, more curiosities than anything else.
They'd seen the results of Human technology. Now Prr't-zevisti was getting a look at the technology itself.
He'd suspected the Zhirrzh were in trouble. He hadn't realized until now just how much trouble they were in.
"Interest (something)," the Human female said. "A surprise (something) amount of (something) and (something) activity in the (something) cells. Far too much for something that's supposed (something) to be dead. I'm start (something) with the (something)."
With an effort Prr't-zevisti pulled his thoughts away from the growing darkness of his fears. All right; so the Humans were formidable opponents. But, then, so were the Zhirrzh. Other alien races had tried throughout history to conquer or destroy them, and all had failed. The Humans would fail too.